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THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 



Between the hedges of the centuries 
A thousand phantom armies go and come, 
While Reason whispers as each marches past, 
"This is the last of wars — this is the last!" 

— Lieut. Gilbert Waterhouse. 



THE WAR IN VERSE 
AND PROSE 



Edited, With Introduction, Notes and 
Original Matter, By 

W. D. EATON 




CHICAGO 

T. S. DENISON & COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



$ 



$8> 



COPYRIGHT, 1918 
EBEN H. NORRIS 



DEC 26 1918 



"The War in Verse and Prose" 

©C1.A508677 



THE REASON FOR THIS BOOK 
<^> o -<o 




MERGING from a long diawn nightmare 
of war, the world will take account of its 
recent past even while it looks to prepara- 
tion for the future. The retrospect will 
disclose an amazing alchemy. We were 

living through great days — how great we could not 

know until they had passed away. 

No epic has been written, nor is it likely any will 
be, for the war was its own epic; and there is no 
Homer to tell its story in one great song. The 
motive was too profound, the theme too vast. 
Homer's world was little. 

But out of the fury that raged round our world 
came many voices, voices of lamentation, of home, 
of love and hope and loftiest aspiration, of ro- 
mance, of comedy as well as tragedy. They had 
their inspiration from the tremendous vision of a 
world grappling with death; from the thoughts 
and emotions not of one people, but of all that 
were fighting the battle of humanism. Poets great 
and poets minor have expressed the purpose and 
spirit of the war in a passionate, personal way im- 
possible to the historian. Their utterances, being 
sincere, have enduring appeal. 

It would not be well were all these voices lost. 
Some of them are worth fixation in the records of 



print, where they may be heard again at will; and 
that is the reason for this book. 

It is a collection of writings that shows how 
poets as well as soldiers and statesmen had an 
earnest part in the great acts now done. It is in 
all tones save that of hatred; and each part in it 
was chosen because of its quality, its clear represen- 
tation of one or other mode of mind. Now and in 
the coming years it should have deep value, espe- 
cially to Americans, because it celebrates not only 
the valor of civilized man, but the spectacle of a 
mighty nation gone to war for an ideal, solidly, 
without one sordid thought, but with a high pur- 
pose to help set free and keep free all the nations 
of men that dwell upon the face of the earth. 

In making the selections, both poetry and prose, 
availability for purposes of recitation has been 
considered. There is no better way to spread 
right thinking or words of beauty than by speech, 
especially in schools. It is hoped they will be 
effective in that use. 

Readers will find many sidelights upon topics 
and personalities where they seemed to be neces- 
sary for better comprehension. These touches 
may commend themselves for their own sake. 

W. D. EATON. 
The Press Club, 

Chicago, November, 1918. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 



CONTENTS 



Abraham Lincoln Walks at 

Midnight 

Aceldama 

Afterward 

American Creed, An .... 
Anxious Anthemist, The . 
Anxious Dead, The .... 

"As She Is Spoke" 

Australia's Men 



Vachel Lindsay 
Dr. George F. Butler . 
Charles Hanson Towne 
Everard Jack Appleton 
Guy Forrester Lee 
Lieut. Col. John McCrae 



Dorothea Mackellar 



144 
117 
133 

57 
169 
109 
113 

96 



Blighty Lieut. Siegfried Sassoon, 

M.C 

Blue and the Gray in France George M. Mayo . 
Boy Next Door, The . . . . S. E. Kiser . . . 
British Army of 1914, The . . Alfred W. Pollard . 
But a Short Time to Live . . Sergt. Leslie Coulson 



Call, The . . . 
Christ in Flanders 
Clerk, The . 
Columbia's Prayer 
Crimson Cross, The 



Cross and the Flag, The 



Robert W. Service . 

L. W 

B. H. M. Hetheringto 
Thomas P. Bashaw 
Elizabeth Brown D 

Bridge 
Cardinal William 

Henry O'Connell 



Destroyers "Klaxon" . . . 

Dirge, A Victor Perowne 

Do Your All Edgar A. Guest . 

Edith Cavell McLandburgh Wilson 

Epyllia Polemia "Galvin O'Claire" 

Evening Star, The .... Harold Seton . . 



121 
41 

172 
119 
103 

106 

55 
94 

82 

48 
45 

84 

90 

152 

178 
63 
81 



8 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

Contents — Continued 

Flag Everlasting A. G. Riddoch ... 40 

Flag of the Free Francis T. Smith . . 153 

Flag Speaks, The W alter E. Peck . . 105 

Flag, The Edward A. Horton . 173 

Flemish Village, A .... H. A 92 

(France Capt. Joseph Medill 

Patterson .... 93 

French in the Trenches . . William J. Robinson . 19 



Gentlemen of Oxford, The . Norah M. Holland : . 115 

Going West Eleanor Jewett , : . 123 

Goldenrod, The "Anchusa" .... 129 

Gold Star, The Edgar A. Guest . . 17 

Goosestep in Erin, The . . . P. M 181 

"Hearts Are Touching" 159 

Here at Verdun Chester M. Wright . 167 

Home Reginald Wright Kauff- 

man 110 

Hymn of Freedom, A . . . . Mary Perry King . . 98 

I Have a Rendezvous with 

Death Alan Seeger ... 99 

In Flanders' Fields .... Lieut. Col. John McCrae 101 
In the Front-Line Desks . . Lieut. Elmer Franklin 

Powell .... 143 

Jean Desprez Robert W. Service . 146 

Just Thinking Hudson Haivley . . 80 

Kid Has Gone to the Colors William Herschell . . 23 

Kings, The Hugh J. Hughes . . 145 

Knitting Socks 128 

Let Us Have Peace .... Charles Eugene Banks 127 

Litany Allene Gregory . . 20 

Little Grimy-Fingered Girl, A Lee Wilson Dodd . . 43 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 



Contents — Continued 

Little Home Paper, The . . Charles Hanson Toivne 15 

Little Town in Senegal, A . . Will Thompson . . 42 

Lonely Garden, The . . . Edgar A. Guest . . 118 

Lost Ones, The Frances Ledwidge . 104 

Magpies in Picardy .... "Tipcuca" .... 130 

Man Behind, The .... Douglas Malloch . . 166 

Marching Soliloquy, A 71 

March of America, The . . Stanley Waterloo . . 13 

Marines, The Adolphe E. Smylie . . 73 

Men of the Blood and Mire . Daniel M. Henderson 160 

Mike Dillon, Doughboy . . Lieut. John Pierre Roche 61 

Missing "Iris" 78 

Morituri Te Salutant . . . P. H. B. L 120 



Nazareth "L." 47 

Nightingales of Flanders, The Grace Hazard Conkling 50 

Nineteen-Seventeen . . . . Susan Hooker Whitman 85 

No Man's Land Capt. James H. Knight- 

Adkin 16 

Not Too Old to Fight . . . T. C. Harbaugh . . 75 

Not with Vain Tears . . . Lieut. Rupert Brooke . 102 

Old Top Sergeant, The . . Berton Braley ... 38 

On His Own Adolphe E. Smylie . 124 

Our Boys in Khaki .... Charlotte W. Thurston 108 



Parenthetically Speaking 176 

Pershing at the Tomb of 

Lafayette Amelia Josephine Burr 52 

Pierrot Goes Charlotte Becker . . 49 

Poilu Steuart M. Emery . 95 

Ragnarok Arthur Guiterman . . 21 

Rain on Your Old Tin Hat . Lieut. J.H. Wicker sham 182 

Refugees, The W. G. S 162 

Retinue, The Katharine Lee Bates . 137 

Ride in France, A . . . . "O. C. Platoon" . . 170 



10 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

Contents — Continued 

Rivers of France, The . . . H. J. M 79 

Road to France, The . . . Daniel M. Henderson . 46 

Runner McGee Edgar A. Guest . . 57 

Scrap of Paper, A . . . Herbert Kaufman . . 24 

Serbian Epitaph, A .... V. Stanimirovic . . 50 

Service Flag, The . . . . J. E. Evans . . . 158 

Service Flag, The .... William Herschell . 154 

Ships that Sail in the Night Dysart McMullen . . 126 

Silent Army, The .... Ian Adanac ... 86 

Small Town Sport, A . . . Damon Runyon . . 155 

Soldier's Folks at Home, The . : 59 

Soldiers of the Soil .... Everard Jack Appleton 44 

Soldier, The Lieut. Rupert Brooke . 102 

Somewhere in France . . . Le Roy C. Henderson . 157 

Somewhere in France, 1918 . Almon Hensley . . . 132 

Song of the Dead, The . . J. H. M. Abbott . . 161 

Song of the Guns, The . . Herbert Kaufman . . 134 

Song of the Winds .... Mary Lanier Magruder 163 

Soul of America, The . . . W. D. Eaton ... 65 

Source of News, The 86 

Spires of Oxford, The . . . Winifred M. Letts . 114 

Stay-Behinds, The . . . . J. H. F 89 

Suddenly One Day 151 

Swan Songs 99 

Tanks O. C. A. Child ... 97 

Telling the Bees . . . . G.E.R 136 

There are Crocuses at Nottingham 184 

There Will Be Dreams Again Mabel Hillyer Eastman 171 

They Shall Not Pass . . . Alison Brown ... 125 

They Shall Return ..../. Lewis Milligan . . 179 

Three Hills Everard Oiven ... 60 

To Happier Days Mabel McElliott . . Ill 

To My Son 87 

To Serve Is to Gain .... Charles H. Mackintosh 179 

To Somebody Harold Seton ... 69 

To the Hun George Sterling . . 51 

"To the Irish Dead" . . . Essex Evans . . . 180 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 



11 



Contents — Continued 

Trains Lieut. John Pierre Roche 53 

Two Viewpoints Amelia Josephine Burr 83 

Victory! S. J. Duncan-Clark . 186 

Vive La France! Charlotte Holmes Craiu- 
ford 139 



War 



War Horse, The 

War Prophecy 

War Rosary, The 

Watchin' Out for Subs . . . 
Wayside in France, A . . . 
We're Marchin' with the 

Country 

"What Think Ye?" . . . . 
While Summers Pass 
With the Same Pride . . . 
Woes of a Rookie, The . . . 
Woman's Game, The . . . 
World Series Opened — Batter 

Up! 



Col. William Lightfoot 

Visscher 
Lieut. L. Fleming 
W. D. Eaton . 
Nellie Hurst 
U.A.L. . . . 
Adolphe E. Smylie 

Frank L. Stanton 
W. A. Briscoe . 
Aline Michaelis 
Theodosia Garrison 
William L. Cole stock 



Your Lad, and My Lad 



Randall Parrish 



70 
174 

25 
185 

18 

76 

151 
165 

72 
116 
141 

91 

177 
112 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 



THE MARCH OF AMERICA 

STANLEY WATERLOO 

This poem was written in 1903, long before the war, long before 
the world had any thought of war. Stanley Waterloo had true 
prophetic vision. He made demonstration of it many times in print 
and private utterance. It is well that from the past, across his 
grave, his speech now, after those months of war, should remind all 
Americans that "Here the old strivings end, here all conditions 
blend, here is the blood of humanity one." 

"\>f ARCH, march, men of America! 

Resolute army to ease the world's fettering. 
March, march, men of America! 

Millions united to win the world's bettering. 
Ours is a high estate, ours is a duty great, 

Making the future, the hosts in one band ; 
Ours is a high estate, ours a great faith to keep; 

This the arena vast — this is the land. 
March, march, farmer and artisan. 

Brothers with brothers, in peace or in war; 
March, march, thinker and partisan; 

Destiny calls and we follow our star. 

Tramp, tramp, this is the later world; 

Noble the heritage time has so brought to us; 
Tramp, tramp, this is the greater world; 

Who would be laggard now is but as naught to us. 
Ours are the mountains and ours the fair meadow land, 

Ours the blue spread of the sweet-water seas, 
Ours the swift rivers' pride, ours are the harbors wide, 

Ours the vast forests and far-stretching leas. 

13 



14 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

Tramp, tramp, mountain and valley come, 

Ocean to ocean reechoes the call; 
Tramp, tramp, prompt to the rally come. 

We are the warders and guarders of all. 

March, march, seeking the newer thing, 

All of the continent's manhood that's vigorous; 
March, march, seeking the truer thing, 

Stern to attain the aim, earnest and rigorous. 
Here the old strivings end, here all conditions blend, 

Here is the blood of humanity one; 
Here all the races melt, Saxon and Norse and Celt, 

Here is the best for humanity done. 
March, march, birth is a little thing. 

Weak are the legends which burden the past; 
March, march, creed is a brittle thing; 

Here is the lot of humanity cast. 

Tramp, tramp, buoyant and glorious, 

Leading the swing of the world to sodality. 
Tramp, tramp, ever victorious, 

Changing the hope of the world to reality. 
Mark where Old Glory flies ! Blue are the bending skies, 

Fair is the promise and certain the goal; 
God will award the fight ; He will promote the right. 

Hark to the summons! It is the Long Roll! 
Tramp, tramp, easily, gallantly, 

This is America — here is the van! 
Tramp, tramp, jauntily, valiantly — 

March of the ages and march of the Man! 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 15 

THE LITTLE HOME PAPER 

CHARLES HANSON TOWNE 

in The American Magazine 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

'"PHE little home paper comes to me, 

As badly printed as it can be; 
It's ungrammatical, cheap, absurd — 
Yet, how I love each intimate word! 
For here am I in the teeming town, 
Where the sad, mad people rush up and down, 
And it's good to get back to the old lost place, 
And gossip and smile for a little space. 

The weather is hot; the corn crop's good; 
They've had a picnic in Sheldon's Wood. 
And Aunt Maria was sick last week; 
Ike Morrison's got a swollen cheek, 
And the Squire was hurt in a runaway — 
More shocked than bruised, I'm glad they say. 
Bert Wills — I used to play with him — 
Is working a farm with his Uncle Jim. 

The Red Cross ladies gave a tea, 

And raised quite a bit. Old Sol MacPhee 

Has sold his house on Lincoln Road — 

He couldn't carry so big a load. 

The methodist minister's had a call 

From a wealthy parish near St. Paul. 

And old Herb Sweet is married at last — 

He was forty-two. How the years rush past! 

But here's an item that makes me see 
What a puzzling riddle life can be. 
"Ed Stokes," it reads, "was killed in France 
When the Allies made their last advance." 



16 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

Ed Stokes! That boy with the laughing eyes 
As blue as the early-summer skies! 
He wouldn't have killed a fly — and yet, 
Without a murmur, without a regret, 

He left the peace of our little place, 

And went away with a light in his face; 

For out in the world was a job to do, 

And he wouldn't come home until it was through! 

Four thousand miles from our tiny town 

And its hardware store, this boy went down. 

Such a quiet lad, such a simple chap — 

But he's put East Dunkirk on the map! 

NO MAN'S LAND 

CAPT. JAMES H. KNIGHT-ADKIN 
in The Spectator 

"M"0 Man's Land is an eerie sight 

At early dawn in the pale gray light. 
Never a house and never a hedge 
In No Man's Land from edge to edge, 
And never a living soul walks there 
To taste the fresh of the morning air. 
Only some lumps of rotting clay, 
That were friends or foemen yesterday. 

What are the bounds of No Man's Land? 
You can see them clearly on either hand, 
A mound of rag-bags gray in the sun, 
Or a furrow of brown where the earthworks run 
From the Eastern hills to the Western sea, 
Through field or forest, o'er river and lea; 
No man may pass them, but aim you well 
And Death rides across on the bullet or shell. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 17 

But No Man's Land is a goblin sight 

When patrols crawl over at dead o' night ; 

Boche or British, Belgian or French, 

You dice with death when you cross the trench. 

When the "rapid," like fire-flies in the dark, 

Flits down the parapet spark by spark, 

And you drop for cover to keep your head 

With your face on the breast of the four months' dead. 

The man who ranges in No Man's Land 
Is dogged by the shadows on either hand 
When the star-shell's flare, as it bursts o'erhead, 
Scares the great gray rats that feed on the dead, 
And the bursting bomb or the bayonet-snatch 
May answer the click of your safety-catch. 
For the lone patrol, with his life in his hand, 
Is hunting for blood in No Man's Land. 

THE GOLD STAR 

EDGAR A. GUEST 
Copyright, 1918, by Edgar A. Guest. Special permission to repro- 
duce in this book. 

'T'HE star upon their service flag has changed to gleam- 
A ing gold ; 

It speaks no more of hope and life, as once it did of old, 
But splendidly it glistens now for every eye to see 
And softly whispers: "Here lived one who died for 
liberty. 

"Here once he walked and played and laughed, here oft 

his smile was known ; 
Within these walls today are kept the toys he used to own. 
Now I am he who marched away and I am he who fell ; 
Of service once I spoke, but now of sacrifice I tell. 



18 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

"No richer home in all this land is there than this I grace, 
For here was cradled manhood fine; within this humble 

place 
A soldier for the truth was born, and here, beside the 

door, 
A mother sits and grieves for him who shall return no 

more. 

"Salute me, stranger, as you pass! I mark a soldier who 
Gave up the joys of living here, to dare and die for you! 
This is the home that once he knew, who fought for you 

and fell; 
This is a shrine of sacrifice, where faith and courage 

dwell." 



WATCHIN' OUT FOR SUBS 

U. A. L. 

From Bert Leston Taylor's column, "A Line o' Type or Two," 

in The Chicago Tribune 

"DOSUN'S whistle piping, "Starboard watch is on" 

Sleepy army officer, waked at crack o' dawn ; 
In the forward crow's nest, watchin' out for subs ; 
If they show a peeper, shoot the bloomin' tubs. 

Ocean black and shiny, silly little moon ; 
Transports fore and aft of us — daylight comin' soon ; 
Sleeping troopers sprawling on the deck below ; 
Something in the water makes the spindrift glow. 

In the forward crow's nest — ah! the day is here! 
Transports and destroyers looming far and near. 
Ours the great adventure — gone is old romance ! 
Wake, ye new Crusaders! Look! — the shores of 
France ! 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 19 

FRENCH IN THE TRENCHES 

WILLIAM J. ROBINSON 

in The San Francisco Argonaut 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

T HAVE a conversation book; I brought it out from 

home. 
It tells you the French for knife and fork and likewise 

brush and comb; 
It learns you how to ask the time, the names of all the 

stars, 
And how to order oysters and how to buy cigars. 

But there ain't no stores to buy in; there ain't no big 

hotels, 
When you spend your time in dugouts doing a wholesale 

trade in shells; 
It's nice to know the proper talk for theatres and such, 
But when it comes to talking, why, it doesn't help you 

much. 
There's all them friendly kind o' things you'd naturally 

say 
When you meet a feller casual like and pass the time o' 

day. 
Them little things that breaks the ice and kind of clears 

the air. 
But when you use your French book, why, them things 

isn't there. 

I met a chap the other day a-rootin' in a trench. 
He didn't know a word of ours, nor me a word of French ; 
And how we ever managed, well, I cannot understand, 
But I never used my French book though I had it in my 

hand. 
I winked at him to start with ; he grinned from ear to ear; 
An' he says, "Bong jour, Sammy," an' I says "Souvenir"; 
He took my only cigarette, I took his thin cigar, 



20 THE WA R IN VERSE AND PROSE 

Which set the ball a-rollin', and so — well, there you are! 
I showed him next my wife and kids ; he up and showed 

me his, 
Them funny little French kids with hair all in a frizz ; 
"Annette," he says, "Louise," he says, and his tears begin 

to fall; 
We was comrades when we parted, though we'd hardly 

spoke at all. 

He'd have kissed me if I'd let him. We had never met 

before, 
And I've never seen the beggar since, for that's the way 

of war; 
And though we scarcely spoke a word, I wonder just the 

same 
If he'll ever see them kids of his — I never asked his name. 

LITANY 

ALLENE GREGORY 

in Harriet Monroe's Poetry Magazine 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

C AINT GENEVIEVE, whose sleepless watch 

Saved threatened France of old, 
Above the ship that carries him 
Your sacred vigil hold. 

Where all the fair green fields you loved 

Are scarred with bursting shell, 
Joan, the Maid who fought for France — 

Oh, guard your young knight well. 

But if by sea or if by land 

God set death in his way — 
Then, Mother of the Sacrificed, 

Teach me what prayer to pray! 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 21 

RAGNAROK 

The Twilight of the Gods 
arthur guiterman 

in The Bellman, Minneapolis 
Permission to reproduce in this book 

XJO! Heimdal sounds the Gjallar-horn: 

The hosts of Hel rush forth 
And Fenris rages redly 
From his shackles in the North; 
Unleashed is Garm, and Lok is loosed, 
And freed is Giant Rime; 
The Rainbow-bridge is broken 
By the hordes of Muspelheim. 
The wild Valkyries ride the wind 
With spear and clanging shield 
Where all the Hates embattled 
Are met on Vigrid-field ; 
For there shall fall the Mighty Ones 
By valiant men adored — 
Great Odin, Tyr the fearless, 
And Frey that sold his sword. 
And Thor shall slay the dragon 
Whose breath shall be his bane. 
The gods themselves shall perish; 
The sons of the gods shall reign ! 

Old Time shall sound the boding horn 
Again and yet again, 
To rouse the warring passions 
That swell the hearts of men. 
Revolt shall wake, and Anarchy, 
With all their horrid throng — 
Revenge, Destruction, Rapine, 



22 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

The spawn of ancient Wrong, 
With all the hosts of slaughter 
That our own sins must breed — 
Cold Hate, Oppression's daughter, 
And Rage, the child of Greed. 
Then, though we stand to battle 
As men have ever stood, 
Down, down shall crash our temples, 
The Evil and the Good; 
Yea, all that now we cherish 
Must pass — but not in vain. 
The gods we love shall perish ; 
The sons of the gods shall reign! 

So, strong in faith, or weak in doubt, 

Or berserk-mad, we range 

Our spears in that long battle 

Which means not Death, but Change. 

Our highest with our lowest 

Must own the grim behest, 

And Good shall yield for Better — 

Else how should come the Best? 

Yet if we win our portion 

How dare we crave the whole? 

And if we still press forward, 

Why need we know the goal? 

But those whose hearts are constant 

And those whose souls are wise 

Have said that from our ashes 

A nobler race shall rise 

From shreds of shattered altars 

To rear the Perfect Fane. 

Our little gods must perish 

That God Himself shall reign! 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 23 

THE KID HAS GONE TO THE COLORS 

WILLIAM HERSCHELL 

in The Indianapolis News 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

'T'HE Kid has gone to the Colors 

And we don't know what to say; 
The Kid we have loved and cuddled 

Stepped out for the Flag today. 
We thought him a child, a baby, 

With never a care at all, 
But his country called him man-size 

And the Kid has heard the call. 

He paused to watch the recruiting 

Where, fired by the fife and drum, 
He bowed his head to Old Glory 

And thought that it whispered: "Come!" 
The Kid, not being a slacker, 

Stood forth with patriot-joy 
To add his name to the roster — 

And God, we're proud of the boy! 

The Kid has gone to the Colors; 

It seems but a little while 
Since he drilled a schoolboy army 

In a truly martial style. 
But now he's a man, a soldier, 

And we lend him listening ear, 
For his heart is a heart all loyal, 

Unscourged by the curse of fear. 

His dad, when he told him, shuddered, 
His mother — God bless her! — cried; 
Yet, blest with a mother-nature, 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

She wept with a mother-pride. 
But he whose old shoulders straightened 

Was Granddad — for memory ran 
To years when he, too, a youngster, 

Was changed by the Flag to a man! 



A SCRAP OF PAPER 

HERBERT KAUFMAN 

From Mr. Kaufman's book of poems, "The Hell-Gate of Soissons." 
T. Fisher Unwin, Publishers (all rights reserved), London, England. 
Special permission to reproduce in this book. 

"Just for a word, 'neutrality' . . just for a scrap of 
paper, Great Britain was going to make war." — The 
German Chancellor to the British Ambassador in Berlin. 

JUST for a "scrap of paper," 
Just for a Nation's word, 
Just for a clean tradition, 
Just for a treaty slurred ; 
Just for a pledge defaulted, 
Just for a dastard blow, 
Just for an ally's summons, 
Just for a friend struck low ; 
Just for the weal of progress, 
Just for a trust held dear, 
Just for the rights of mankind, 
Just for a duty clear; 
Just for a Prussian insult, 
Just for a splendid cause, 
Just for the hope of progress, 
Just for the might of laws ; 
Just for the kingdom's peril, 
Just for a deed of shame, 
Just for defense of honor, 
Just for the British name! 



/ 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 25 

WAR PROPHECY 
Biblical, Poetic and Prose 

"V/TEN in all ages have accepted signs and omens, some- 
times with caution, often with faith. If Prophecy be 
conceded genuine power as demonstrated in the Hebrew 
scriptures, it cannot be denied to ages other than theirs. 
It is explicable upon the understanding that time, being 
a figment of man to fit his own limits of compre- 
hension, disappears when conscious intelligence pierces 
higher levels of perception and all becomes an everlasting 
Now. This being so, the future is disclosed as fixed, like 
the past; and prophecy shows itself as a property of nat- 
ural law. 

There needs no ghost come from the grave to tell us 
this. It is certain that vast calamities have troubled 
the souls of men long before they came to pass. Without 
stopping to argue the matter at large, it may be permis- 
sible to cite instances foreboding the present time, begin- 
ning with John in his Revelation of Jesus Christ. In 
that Revelation he prophesied the Battle of Armageddon. 

The battle was given ostensibly as the symbol of the 
overthrow of Pagan Rome by force of arms. It comes 
into the Roman theme of Revelation thus: 

"For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, 
which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the 
whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great 
day of God Almighty. 

"And he gathered them together into a place called in 
the Hebrew tongue Armageddon." (Revelation xvi, 14, 
16.) 

The battle is not described — probably it was too big for 
that — but its results are given : 

"And the beast was taken, and with him the false 
prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he 



26 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and 
them that worshipped his image. These both were cast 
alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone." (Rev- 
elation xix, 20.) 

Exegetes allow that the beast here is Caesar, and the 
false prophet Paganism. The connection between the 
first paragraph and the second can be shown from the 
Greek text. 

If the Roman application is right (and there is no rea- 
son for a contrary view) , the battle of Armageddon appears 
to have been an affair of centuries, and to have included 
all the wars and all the battles that led to the dissolution 
of the empire. 

St. John seems to have taken the name of Armageddon 
for a symbol because it had a battle history well known 
to the Jews. There, by the torrent of Kison, Barac 
defeated Sisera (Judges iv, 6-16). The kings came and 
fought the kings of Canaan in Taanach, by the waters of 
Megiddo (Judges v, 19). Jehu, King of Israel, fought 
with Ahaziah, King of Judah, who fled to Megiddo, and 
died there (II Kings, ix, 27). King Josiah was slain at 
Megiddo by Pharaoh-nechoh, King of Egypt (II Kings 
xxiii, 29). 

The city of Megiddo stood in the plain of Esdraelon, 
somewhere near the river Kison ("the waters of Megid- 
do"). It was a very old place, said to have been besieged 
by Thothmes III eighteen centuries B. C. 

In the face of its relation to Rome the prophecy has 
for about five hundred years been accepted by Christendom 
as unfulfilled, awaiting a last conflict between the powers 
of earth. Every approach to a great war has been accom- 
panied by tremors of expectation among the righteous, 
who saw in it the shadow of Armageddon cast before. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 27 

The idea of a millennium has been bound up with it, 
for later in the Revelation (xx, 2-3) we are told that 

"He laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which 
is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, 

"And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him 
up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the 
nations no more, till the thousand years should be ful- 
filled : and after that he must be loosed a little season." 

A comforting assurance to this vext world, but very 
bad for Germany's recent kaiser, who is welcome to such 
comfort as he may find in the indeterminate parol indi- 
cated by the rather grudging clause at the close. 

For if the prophecy did not exactly fit Caesar and the 
false prophet Paganism, it does in every particular fit 
the case of the kaiser and the false prophet Kultur, that 
"wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived 
them that had received the mark of the beast and them 
that worshipped his image." 

Prophecy and poesy are akin, both being of pure in- 
spiration, differing only in degree. All prophets may not 
be poets ; but all poets are prophets in one or another way, 
sometimes in ways quite open and direct. 

Prophecy relating to a final tempest of war was not pe- 
culiar to St. John, nor local to Patmos. Men of imagina- 
tion, writers for the most part, have often glimpsed such 
a tempest as sure to come. Some have seen it vaguely, 
some clearly — as lightning on a summer night may split 
the dark and for a flaming instant show a vivid picture. 
Thus Tennyson in a rapt moment 

". . dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, 
Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that 
would be; 



28 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 



Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic 

sails ; 
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly 

bales ; 

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a 

ghastly dew 
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central 

blue; 

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind 

rushing warm, 
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the 

thunder-storm ; 

Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags 

were furl'd 
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. 

And to others came voices, as to Whitman, listening 
in his solitude to a ghostly Trumpeter: 

"A SHUDDERING hum like distant thunder rolls. 
Lo, where the armed men hasten — lo, 'mid the 

clouds of dust the glint of bayonets. 
I see the grime-faced cannoneers, I mark the rosy flush 

amid the smoke, I hear the crackling of the guns ; 
Nor war alone — thy fearful music-song, wild player, 

brings every sight of fear, 
The deeds of ruthless brigands, rapine, murder — I hear 

the cries for help ! 
I see ships foundering' at sea, I behold on deck and below 

deck the terrible tableaux. 

"O trumpeter, methinks I am myself the instrument thou 
playest. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 29 

Thou melt'st my heart, my brain — thou movest, drawest, 

changest them at will; 
And now thy sullen notes send darkness through me. 
Thou takest away all cheering light, all hope. 

I see the enslaved, the overthrown, the hurt, the opprest 

of the whole earth. 
I feel the measureless shame and humiliation of my race, 

it becomes all mine. 
Mine too, the revenges of humanity, the wrongs of ages, 

baffled feuds and hatred. 
Utter defeat upon me weighs — all lost — the foe victorious. 
(Yet 'mid the ruin Pride colossal stands unshaken to the 

last, 
Endurance, resolution to the last.) 

"O glad, exulting, culminating song! 

A vigor more than earth's is in thy notes. 

Marches of victory — man disenthralled — the conqueror at 

last! 
Hymns to the universal God from universal man — all joy! 
A reborn race appears — a perfect world, all joy! 
Riotous bacchanals filled with joy! 
War, sorrow, suffering, gone — the rank earth purged — 

nothing but joy left! 
The ocean filled with joy — the atmosphere all joy! 
Joy! joy! in freedom, worship, love! joy in the ecstasy of 

life! 
Enough to merely be ! Enough to breathe !" 

Jules Verne, prophet and prose poet, projected into the 
world's mind the first submarine, and gave it a fancied 
voyage of twenty thousand leagues under the sea, long 
before Holland, our American inventor, made the work- 
ing model from which came all those various forms of 



30 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

submarine vessels that figured so largely in the war. 
Verne also, in his "Experiment of Doctor Ox," brought 
deadly gases into warfare. That book was published in 
the eighteen-seventies. 

Mother Shipton was not the first to see ships sailing 
the sky. The germ of that idea is found in Greek myth- 
ology. It did not take palpable form until Professor 
Langley of the Smithsonian Institution made and flew the 
first heavier-than-air machine. The accident that de- 
stroyed the machine and the ridicule that most unjustly 
followed were too much for Langley. He died of a 
broken heart. The Wright brothers approached the 
problem from a different direction, so that practical avia- 
tion may be dated from their production of a gas motor 
of low weight and high power. Their first flight in a 
power machine was the beginning of Tennyson's "airy 
navies, grappling in the central blue." 

Yet an old fellow, Owen Cambridge, in 1751 (a hun- 
dred and sixty-seven years ago), described an air contest 
between a Briton and a German, in most essentials like 
many such things that were going on every day, just a 
little while ago. 

ET brisker "youths their active nerves prepare 
Fit their light silken wings and skim the buxom air. 
Mov'd by my words, two youths of equal fire 
Spring from the crowd and to the prize aspire. 
The one a German of distinguish'd fame; 
His rival from projecting Britain came. 
They spread their wings and with a rising bound 
Swift at the word together quit the ground. 
The Briton's rapid flight outstrips the wind; 
The lab'ring German urges close behind. 
As some light bark, pursu'd by ships of force, 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 31 

Stretches each sail to swell her swifter course, 

The nimble Briton from his rival flies 

And soars on bolder pinions to the skies. 

Sudden the string which bound his plumage broke: 

His naked arms in yielding air he shook: 

His naked arms no more support his weight, 

But fail him sinking from his airy height. 

Yet as he falls, so chance or fate decreed, 

His rival near him urg'd his winged speed. 

Not unobserv'd (despair suggests a thought), 

Fast by the foot the heedless youth he caught 

And drew th' insulting victor to the ground; 

While rocks and woods with loud applause resound. 

Technically, Cambridge was a little off, but not so 
far, either, when you remember that his data were drawn 
from his fancy. When he had a Briton and a German go 
to it in the air with the decision in favor of the Briton, 
he rang the bell — prophetically speaking. 

In the same poem Cambridge had a submersible: 

A BARK emergent rose : with oars well tim'd, 

Cut the smooth wave, and o'er the surface skim'd, 
Then sunk again, but still her course pursu'd. 
Clear was the stream and all beneath we view'd. 

Not much like Holland's self-contained vessel, but a pretty 
good shot, considering the time of writing. The poem 
was called "Scriblerius." Its hero was Martinus Scrib- 
lerius, Pope's satirical creation, who read everything but 
learned nothing. 

Back of Cambridge, away back as far as the middle of 
the fifteenth century, Giambatesta Dunte, a mathematic- 
ian, invented a set of artificial wings and with them made 
a flight over Lake Thrasemene. Afterward he went to 



32 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

Russia and gave an exhibition which terminated his avia- 
tory career, for an iron joint in one of the wings gave 
way while he was up, and he fell on the roof of a church, 
breaking a leg. He returned to Italy and obscurity and 
mathematics, at Venice. His case is well attested, for he 
had become widely known as "The Second Daedalus." A 
prophet in act, though not in words. 

Walter Besant in a book published over forty years 
ago — St. Katherine's by the Tower — wrote a review 
of Napoleon's wars that could be taken as from a "young 
man" looking back over our war. In effect it was a 
prophecy, for the broadest survey of those wars would 
show no such desolation as the desolation wrought by 
this one. 

"Our young men," he said, "have witnessed a gigantic 
war — a war which covered the whole of Europe — all the 
continent; which destroyed millions of men, overturned 
the proudest monarchies and the most solid institutions. 
It has been a war the like of which has never before 
been seen in the history of the world, and its conse- 
quences I verily believe will never end in the remaining 
history of the world." Transpose dates and you have 
an advance description squarely entitled to prophetic class- 
ification. 

About thirty years back, a prominent New York pub- 
lishing house issued a book called Beitigheim, a story of an 
imagined war in Europe in which England, France, Italy 
and the United States are allied against Germany, Austria 
and Russia, a tremendous conflict, in which America, in 
a four days' battle at Beitigheim, in Germany, decisively 
defeats Germany and puts an end to German imperialism 
— for all time. The Russian alignment may not turn out 
so asymetric as it seems now ; but otherwise, and in many 
minor features, the forecast is remarkably accurate. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 33 

About fifteen years ago H. G. Wells wrote a story 
that appeared in The Strand magazine (London) in 
which the now familiar battle tank was described about 
as well as any good writer could describe one now, after 
an inspection. In a war between Great Britain and Ger- 
many (the Germans are not called so directly, but they 
are not to be mistaken) a British army, perfect in every 
way, is made helpless and thoroughly beaten by monster 
machines, armor protected, that come lumbering along, 
blazing away with heavy guns, rolling over the regi- 
ments with no more trouble than though they had been 
so much standing wheat, and paying not the slightest 
attention to any form of assault. When it is all over 
the machines stop, doors open at their sides, and from 
these doors emerge not soldiers, but professional look- 
ing men wearing spectacles and oilstained overalls, who 
leisurely eat sandwiches while they make notes and 
compare computations. Mr. Wells is a bit of a prophet 
anyway, as everyone knows. In this case he has been 
absolutely borne out with the sole yet transcendently 
happy difference that the Germans, not the British, take 
the licking. 

Is it impossible that thought may diffuse itself in some 
etheric plane and somewhere find lodgment in a human 
brain and set in action there a train of newer thoughts 
from which fresh marvels may ensue? People have a 
way of saying "the thing's in the air." Maybe the saying 
is truer than they wot. 

For experience has shown that when a new great thing 
is due to come into the world many minds, each una- 
ware of the others, minds separated by wide distances, are 
found trying to give it form. Out of these separated 



34 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

gropings comes eventually a form that will work. This 
is especially true of mechanical inventions. May not 
prophecy by subtle modes of its own cause its own ful- 
fillment? Is it to consider too curiously to consider so, 
at least in things mechanical? The other and higher 
forms of prophecy would not be touched at all by such 
consideration. 

And the one higher prophet of later days was Count 
Tolstoi. 

Count Tolstoi died some time before the war. About 
a year before his death, the Czar requested his views 
upon the European situation as it then was, and the 
probable course of world events. By way of answer 
Tolstoi went into what spiritists would call a trance — 
a state of self-induced hypnosis; and in that state de- 
livered a prophecy. A young woman, a member of the 
family, took down what he said, as he said it. Not 
long after, but while he still lived, it was made public 
and attracted wide though cynically amused attention. 
Then it dropped out of sight and did not reappear until 
after the invasion of Belgium. Here is a translation in 
full: 

"This is a Revelation of events of a Universal charac- 
ter which must shortly come to pass: 

"Their spiritual outlines are now before my eyes. I 
see floating upon the surface of the sea of human fate 
the huge silhouette of a nude Woman. She is, with her 
beauty, poise, her smile, her jewels, a super- Venus. Na- 
tions rush madly after her, each of them eager to attract 
her especially. But she, like an eternal courtesan, flirts 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 35 

with all. In her Crown of diamonds and rubies is en- 
graved her name, 'Commercialism.' As alluring and 
bewitching as she seems, much destruction and agony fol- 
low in her wake. Her breath, reeking of sordid trans- 
actions, her voice of metallic character like gold, and her 
look of greed are so much poison to the Nations who fall 
victims to her charms. 

"And behold, she has three gigantic arms with three 
torches of universal corruption in her hands. The first 
torch represents the flame of War, that the beautiful 
courtesan carries from city to city and country to country. 
Patriotism answers with flashes of honest flame, but the 
end is a roar of guns and murderous explosives which 
destroy the countries and slaughter the patriots. 

"The second torch bears the flame of Bigotry and 
Hypocrisy. It lights the lamps only in Temples and 
on the altars of sacred institutions. It carries the seed 
of Falsity and Fanaticism. It kindles the Minds that 
are still in cradles and follows them to their graves. 

"The third torch is that of the Law, that dangerous 
foundation of all unauthentic traditions, which first does 
its fatal work in the Family, then sweeps through the 
larger world of Literature, Art and Statesmanship. 

"The great Conflagration will start about 1912, set 
by the torch of the first arm in the countries of South- 
eastern Europe. It will develop into a destruction and 
calamity in 1914. In that year I see all Europe in flames 
and bleeding. I hear the lamentations from huge bat- 
tlefields. But after 1915 a great Napoleonic Leader 
enters upon the stage of the bloody Drama. He is a man 
of little militaristic training, a writer or a journalist, 
but in his grip most of Europe will remain until 1925. 



36 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

"The end of the great calamity will mark a new polit- 
ical era for the Old World. There will be left no em- 
pires or kingdoms, but the world will form a Federation 
of the United States of Nations. There will remain 
only four great giants — the Anglo-Saxon, the Latins, the 
Slavs and the Mongolians. 

"After the year 1925 I see a change in religious sen- 
timent. The second torch of the Courtesan has brought 
about the fall of the Church. The Ethical idea has 
almost vanished. Humanity is without moral feeling. 
Then shall come a great Reformer. He will clear the 
World of the relics of Monotheism and lay the corner- 
stone of the Temple of Pantheism. God, Soul, Spirit 
and Immortality will be molten in a new regenerating 
furnace, the peaceful beginning of an ethical era! The 
Man destined for this mission is a Mongolian Slav. He 
is already walking the Earth — a man of active affairs. 
He himself does not now realize the mission assigned 
to him by Superior Powers. 

"And, behold, I see the Law, the third torch, which 
has already begun to destroy the Family relations, our 
standards of Art and Morals. The relation between 
Woman and Man is accepted as a prosaic Partnership 
of the Sexes. Art has become Realistic Degeneracy. Po- 
litical and religious disturbances have shaken the Spiritual 
foundations of all Nations. 

"Only small spots here and there have remained un- 
touched by those Three destructive flames. The anti- 
National Wars in Europe, the Class War of America 
and the Race Wars in Asia have strangled Progress for 
half a century. In the year 1950, I see a heroine of 
Literature and Art rising from the ranks of the Latins 
and Persians — the languorous World — Tedious and ple- 
beian. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 37 

"It is the light of Symbolism that shall outshine the 
light of the torches of the Siren, 'Commercialism.' In 
place of Polygamy and Monogamy of today, there will 
come a 'Poet-ogamy,' relations of the Sexes based fun- 
damentally on the poetic conceptions of life. And I see 
the Nations growing larger and realizing that the allur- 
ing Woman of their destiny is after all but an illusion. 

"There will come a time when the World will have 
no use for armies, hypocritical Religions, and degenerate 
Art. 

"Life is Evolution, and Evolution is development from 
the simple to the sublimer forms of Mind and Body. 
I see the passing show of the World-Drama, in its pres- 
ent form, as it fades like the glow of evening upon the 
mountains. One motion of the hand of Commercialism 
and a new history begins." 

That is big writing, broad in the sense of literary art, 
and in every way impressive. It has been justified by 
events thus far: The Balkan War of 1912 led up to 
the shattering explosion of 1914. "All Europe" was 
"in flames," a thing undreamable at the time of fore- 
telling, unrealized until it had come; and even then 
inadequately. The new man who is to be master of 
Europe has not yet been identified, if he exists at all — 
but he was not to come until "after 1915." 

It is unnecessary to accept or reject the Messianic 
passage, but it derives significance from the fact that all 
the great message bearers within our scope of history 
rose in the orient. Moses, Zarathrusta, Confucius, Gau- 
tama, Jesus, Mohammed, were orientals. 

In things of the spirit, the western world has given 
us no Messiah, but many prophets, all false, all meretri- 
cious. Christianity has reached such a pass as that in which 
John Baptist cried that unless God spake again, religion 



38 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

must die. Through the night that has covered us we 
approach a new dawn, a herald of gentler days. If that 
dawn break and that herald rise in the East, who shall 
wonder? Let us wait, our faces turned that way — 
and hope. 



THE OLD TOP SERGEANT 

BERTON BRALEY 

From Mr. Braley's book, "In Camp and Trench," published and 
copyright, 1918, by George H. Doran Company, New York. Special per- 
mission to reproduce in this bpok. 

"Shavetail" is a name applied by enlisted men in the regular army 
to lieutenants fresh from West Point. 

'"TWENTY years of the army, of drawing a sergeant's 
pay 
And helping the West Point shavetails, fresh from the 
training school, 
To handle a bunch of soldiers and drill 'em the proper 
way 
(Which isn't always exactly according to book and 
rule). 
I've seen 'em rise to Captains and Majors and Colonels, 
too, 
And me still only a sergeant, the same as I used to be, 
And I knew that some of them didn't know as much as 
a sergeant knew, 
But I stuck to my daily duty — there wasn't a growl 
from me. 

Twenty years of the army, 

Serving in peace and war, 
Standing the drill of the army mill, 

For that's what they paid me for. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 39 

Twenty years with the army, which wasn't so much for 
size, 
But man for man I'd back it to lick any troops on 
earth. 
'Twas a proud little classy army, as good as the flag it 
flies, 
And it takes an old top sergeant to know what the 
flag is worth. 
Then — a shot at Sarejevo, and hell burst over there 
And the kaiser dragged us in it, and the bill for the 
draft was passed 
And — they handed me my commission, and some shoulder 
straps to wear, 
And the crazy dream of my rooky days had changed 
to a fact at last. 

Twenty years with the army, 
And it's great to know they call 

On the guys like me for what will be 
The mightiest job of all. 

Twenty years of the army, of doing what shavetails bid, 
And I know I haven't the polish that fellows like that 
will show, 
And I hold a high opinion of the brains of a West Point 
kid, 
But I think I can make him hustle when it comes to 
the work I know. 
But who cares where we come from, Plattsburg, ranks, 
or the Guard, 
This isn't a pink tea-party, but a War to be fought 
and won; 
There's a serious job before us, a job that is huge and 
hard, 



40 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

And the social register don't count until we've got it 
done! 

Twenty years in the army, 

And now I've got my chance. 
Have I earned my straps? Well, you watch the chaps 

That I've trained for the game in France! 



FLAG EVERLASTING 

A. G. RIDDOCH 

"CLAG of our Faith: lead on — 
Across the sand-blown plain, 
The deep and trackless main, 
When duty's trumpets blow, 
Where frowns the freeman's foe, 
And right crushed to the sod 
Lifts soul to righteous God. 
Flag of our Faith: lead on — 

Flag of our Hope : lead on — 
When stormy clouds hang low 
And chilling north-winds blow 
And days are long and drear. 
When nights breed grief and fear; 
A rainbow lights the sky 
Whene'er its colors fly. 
Flag of our Hope: lead on — 

Flag of our Love: lead on — 
In loyal hearts supreme, 
Fairer than love's first dream, 
Our first choice and our last, 
Brightened by every blast. 
Oh, emblem pure and sweet, 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 41 

Thou can'st not know defeat. 
Flag of our Love: lead on — 

Flag of our Home: lead on — 
Beneath thy folds we rest, 
We live and love our best, 
The fairest roses blow, 
The richest harvests grow, 
And care-free children play 
And gladden every day. 
Flag of our Home: lead on — 

l'envoi — 

Flag of our Faith, our Hope, our Love, 
Flag of our Home, wave on above. 
We'll live, we'll fight, we'll die for you — 
Flag Everlasting, Red, White and Blue. 

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY IN FRANCE 

GEORGE M. MAYO 

XJERE'S to the Blue of the wind-swept North, 

When we meet on the fields of France; 
May the spirit of Grant be with you all 
As the sons of the North advance. 

And here's to the Gray of the sun-kissed South, 
When we meet on the fields of France; 

May the spirit of Lee be with you all 
As the sons of the South advance. 

And here's to the Blue and the Gray as one, 
When we meet on the fields of France; 

May the spirit of God be with us all 
As the sons of the Flag advance. 



42 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

A LITTLE TOWN IN SENEGAL 

WILL THOMPSON 

in Everybody's Magazine 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

HEAR the throbbing music down the lanes of Afric 
rain: 
The Afric spring is breaking, down in Senegal again. 

little town in Senegal, amid the clustered gums, 
Where are your sturdy village lads, who one time danced 

to drums? 

At Soissons, by a fountain wall, they sang their melodies; 

And some now lie in Flemish fields, beside the northern 
seas; 

And some tonight are camped and still, along the Marne 
and Aisne; 

And some are dreaming of the palms that bend in Afric 
rain. 

The music of the barracks half awakes them from their 
dream ; 

They smile and sink back sleepily along the Flemish 
stream. 

They dream the baobab's white buds have opened over- 
night ; 

They dream they see the solemn cranes that bask in morn- 
ing light. 

1 hear the great drums beating in the square across the 

plain. 
Where are the tillers of the soil, the gallant, loyal train? 
O little town in Senegal, amid the white-bud trees, 
At Soissons, in Picardy, went north the last of these! 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 43 

A LITTLE GRIMY-FINGERED GIRL 

LEE WILSON DODD 

in The Outlook 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

In sending his permission to use this sharp flash of the 

spirit of France, Mr. Dodd wrote: "It may interest you to know that 

the little grimy-fingered girl is real, and that I bought 'L'Intrans' from 

her every evening for many months during the dark days of last spring 

in Paris." The spring referred to being that of 1918, when the Germans 

were only a few miles from the city. 

A LITTLE grimy-fingered girl 
In stringy black and broken shoes 
Stands where sharp human eddies whirl 
And offers — news: 

News from the front. " 'L'Intransigeant' ', ' 
M'sieUj comme d' ordinaire?" Her smile 
Is friendly though her face is gaunt; 
There is no guile, 
No mere mechanic flash of teeth, 
No calculating leer of glance . . . 
You wear your courage like a wreath, 
Daughter of France. 
Back of old sorrow in tired eyes 
Back of endurance, through the night 
That wearies you and makes you wise, 
I see a light 

Unshaken, proud, that does not pale, 
— And you are nobody, my dear; 
"Une vraie gamine," who does not quail, 
Who knows not fear. 
Rattle your sabers, Lords of Hate, 
Ye shall not force them to their knees! 

A street-girl scorns your God, your State 

The least of these. . . . 

Place du Theatre Francais, 
Paris, February, 1918. 



44 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

SOLDIERS OF THE SOIL 

EVERARD JACK APPLETON 

By permission of Stewart & Kidd Company, Cincinnati, Publishers 
of "With the Colors," by Everard Jack Appleton. Copyright, 1917. 

TT'S a high-falutin' title they have handed us; 

It's very complimentary and grand; 
But a year or so ago they called us "hicks," you know — 
An' joshed the farmer and his hired hand! 

Now it's, "Save the country, Farmer ! 

Be a soldier of the soil! 
Show your patriotism, pardner, 

By your never ending toil." 
So we're croppin' more than ever, 

An' we're speedin' up the farm. 
Oh, it's great to be a soldier — 
A sweatin' sun-burnt soldier, — 
A soldier in the furrows — 

Away from "war's alarm!" 

While fightin* blight and blister, 

We hardly get a chance 
To read about our "comrades" 

A-doin' things in France. 
To raise the grub to feed 'em 

Is some job, believe me — plus! 
And I ain't so sure a soldier — 
A shootin', scrappin' soldier, 
That's livin' close to dyin' — 

Ain't got the best of us! 

But we'll harrer and we'll harvest, 
An' we'll meet this new demand 
Like the farmers always meet it — 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 45 

The farmers — and the land. 
An' we hope, when it is over 

An' this war has gone to seed, 
You will know us soldiers better — 
Th' sweatin', reapin' soldiers, 
Th' soldiers that have hustled 
To raise th' grub you need! 

It's a mighty fine title you have given us, 
A name that sounds too fine to really stick; 

But maybe you'll forget (when you figure out your debt) 
To call th' man who works a farm a "hick." 



THE CROSS AND THE FLAG 

CARDINAL WILLIAM HENRY O'CONNELL 
in The Catholic School Journal 

"LTAIL, banner of our holy faith, 

Redemption's sacred sign, 
Sweet emblem thou of heavenly hope 

And of all help divine, 
We bare our heads in reverence 

As o'er us is unfurled 
The standard of the Cross of Christ 

Whose blood redeemed the world. 

Hail, banner of our native land, 

Great ensign of the free, 
We love thy glorious Stars and Stripes, 

Emblem of liberty; 
Lift high the cross, unfurl the flag; 

May they forever stand 
United in our hearts and hopes, 

God and our native land. 



46 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

THE ROAD TO FRANCE 

DANIEL M. HENDERSON 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

The 1917 prize of the National Arts Club of New York wu 
awarded to Mr. Henderson's poem. It was chosen out of more than 
four thousand that were submitted. 

'T'HANK God, our liberating lance 

Goes flaming on the way to France! 
To France — the trail the Gurkhas found; 
To France — old England's rallying-ground ! 
To France — the path the Russians strode! 
To France — the Anzacs' glory road! 
To France — where our Lost Legion ran 
To fight and die for God and man! 
To France — with every race and breed 
That hates Oppression's brutal creed! 

Ah, France, how could our hearts forget 
The path by which came Lafayette? 
How could the haze of doubt hang low 
Upon the road of Rochambeau? 
How was it that we missed the way 
Brave Joffre leads us along today? 
At last, thank God ! At last, we see 
There is no tribal Liberty! 
No beacon lighting just our shores, 
No Freedom guarding but our doors. 
The flame she kindled for our sires 
Burns now in Europe's battle-fires. 
The soul that led our fathers west 
Turns back to free the world's opprest. 

Allies, you have not called in vain ; 
We share your conflict and your pain. 
"Old Glory," through new stains and rents. 
Partakes of Freedom's sacraments. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 47 

Into that hell his will creates 
We drive the foe — his lusts, his hates. 
Last come, we will be last to stay, 
Till Right has had her crowning day. 
Replenish, comrades, from our veins 
The blood the sword of despot drains, 
And make our eager sacrifice 
Part of the freely rendered price 
You pay to lift humanity — 
You pay to make our brothers free. 
See, with what proud hearts we advance 
To France! 



NAZARETH 

"L" 
in the Chicago Tribune 
On the capture of the city by the British under General Allenby, 
September 21, 1918. 

A CROSS the sands by Mary's well 
Along the shores of Galilee, 
The paths are pitted deep with shell 
And drab with marching infantry. 

Perhaps upon the self-same spot 
Where He first lifted His head, 

In cellar straw and manger cot, 
Now Freedom's hosts are billeted. 

Then 'twas a life — now myriad death. 
The Allied troops win Nazareth. 



48 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

THE CRIMSON CROSS 

ELIZABETH BROWN DU BRIDGE 
in The Daily News, Sault Ste. Marie 

(~\UTSIDE the ancient city's gate 

Upon Golgotha's crest 
Three crosses stretched their empty arms, 

Etched dark against the west. 
And blood from nail-pierced hands and feet 

And tortured thorn-crowned head 
And thrust of hatred's savage spear 

Had stained one dark cross red. 
Emblem of shame and pain and death 

It stood beside the way, 
But sign of love and hope and life 

We lift it high today. 

Where horror grips the stoutest heart, 

Where bursting shells shriek high, 
Where human bodies shrapnel scourged 

By thousands suffering lie; 
Threading the shambles of despair, 

Mid agony and strife, 
Come fleetest messengers who wear 

The crimson cross of life. 
To friend and foe alike they give 

Their strength and healing skill, 
For those who wear the crimson cross 

Must "do the Master's will." 

Can we, so safely sheltered here, 

Refuse to do our part? 
When some who wear the crimson cross 

Are giving life and heart 
To succor those who bear our flag, 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 49 

Who die that we may live — 
Shall we accept their sacrifice 

And then refuse to give? 
Ah, no! Our debt to God and man 

We can, we will fulfill, 
For we, who wear the crimson cross, 

Must "do the Master's will." 



PIERROT GOES 

CHARLOTTE BECKER 

in Everybody's Magazine 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

| TP among the chimneys tall 

Lay the garret of Pierrot. 
Here came trooping to his call 

Fancies no one else might know; 
Here he bade the spiders spin 
Webs to hide his treasure in. 

Here he heard the night wind croon 
Slumber-songs for sleepyheads; 

Here he spied the spendthrift moon 
Strew her silver on the leads ; 

Here he wove a coronet 

Of quaint lyrics for Pierrette. 

But the bugles blew him down 
To the fields with war beset; 

Marched him past the quiet town, 
Past the window of Pierrette ; 

Comrade now of sword and lance, 

Pierrot gave his dreams to France. 



50 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

A SERBIAN EPITAPH 

V. STANIMIROVIC 

After the retreat of the Serbian Army across the mountains of 
Albania in 1915, the survivors who reached the coast were shipped to 
Corfu. Here, and in the neighboring island of Vido, many of them 
died — to begin with, at the rate of hundreds a day. Some of them 
were buried at sea. Others lie in common graves. In the midst of 
the mounds which mark their resting-place, and which vary in size, 
there stands a cross. On it is a Serbian inscription, written by the poet, 
V. Stanimirovic, and translated for the London Westminster Gazette by 
Mr. L. F. Waring: 

"VTEVER a Serbian flower shall bloom 
In exile on our far-off tomb. 
Our little ones shall watch in Vain : 
Tell them we shall not come again. 

Yet greet for us our fatherland, 

And kiss for us her sacred strand. 

These mounds shall tell the years to be 
Of men who died to make her free. 



THE NIGHTINGALES OF FLANDERS 

GRACE HAZARD CONKLING 
in Everybody's Magazine 

Permission to reproduce in this book. 
"Le rossignol n'est pas mobilise." — A French Soldier 

'T'HE nightingales of Flanders, 
They had not gone to war; 
A soldier heard them singing 
Where they had sung before. 

The earth was torn and quaking, 

The sky about to fall; 
The nightingales of Flanders, 

They minded not at all. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 51 

At intervals he heard them 

Between the guns, he said, 
Making a thrilling music 

Above the listening dead. 

Of woodland and of orchard 

And roadside tree bereft, 
The nightingales of Flanders 

Were singing "France is left!" 



TO THE HUN 

GEORGE STERLING 
From Mr. Sterling's book of poems "The Binding of the Beast." 
Published by A. M. Robertson, San Francisco. Special permission to 
reproduce in this book. 

"^TOT for the love of conquest do we blame 

Thy monstrous armies, nor the blinded rage 

That holds thee traitor to this gentler age, 
Nor yet for cities given to the flame; 
For changing Europe finds thy heart the same 

And as of old thy bestial heritage. 

The Light is not for thee. The war we wage 
Is less on thee than on thy deathless shame. 
Lo! this is thy betrayal — that we know, 

Gazing on thee, how far Man's footsteps stray 

From the pure heights of love and brotherhood — 
How deep in undelivered night we go — 

How long on bitter paths we shall delay, 

Held by thy bruteship from the Gates of Good. 



52 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 



PERSHING AT THE TOMB OF LAFAYETTE 

AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR 
From Amelia Josephine Burr's book of poems, "The Silver Trum- 
pet." Published and copyright, 1918, by George H. Doran Company, 
New York. Special permission to reproduce in this book. 

'T'HEY knew they were fighting our war. As the months 

grew to years 
Their men and their women had watched through their 

blood and their tears 
For a sign that we knew, we who could not have come 

to be free 
Without France, long ago. And at last from the threat- 
ening sea 
The stars of our strength on the eyes of their weariness 

rose 
And he stood among them, the sorrow-strong hero we 

chose 
To carry our flag to the tomb of that Frenchman whose 

name 
A man of our country could once more pronounce without 

shame. 
What crown of rich words would he set for all time on 

this day? 
The past and the future were listening what he would 

say — 
Only this, from the white-flaming heart of a passion 

austere, 
Only this — ah, but France understood! "Lafayette, we 

are here." 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 53 

TRAINS 

LIEUT. JOHN PIERRE ROCHE 

From Lieutenant Roche's book of poems, "Rimes in Olive Drab." 
Robert M. McBride & Company, Publishers, New York. Copyright, 1918. 
Special permission to insert in this book. 

Lieutenant Roche has deftly caught and preserved in words the 
strange vision of unannounced trains that flash now and then past 
towns and villages bearing American troops from unknown camps to 
unknown ports of embarkation — the flash of faces of men about whom 
it is known only that they came from the shops and fields of home 
and are going across the seas to fight somewhere, for those who stand 
and gaze as they whirl by. The mystery, the roar of wheels, the 
eddying dust and the silence that follows infuse these lines with picture 
and sound that will stay in the minds of any who have seen such trains 
go hurrying away. 

fWER thousands of miles 

Of shining steel rails, 
Past green and red semaphores 
And unheeding flagmen, 
Trains are running, 
Trains, trains, trains. 

Rattling through tunnels 

And clicking by way stations, 

Curving through hills, past timber, 

Out into the open places, 

Flashing past silos and barns 

And whole villages, 

Until finally they echo 

Against the squat factories 

That line the approach to the cities. 

Trains, trains, trains 

With the fire boxes wide open, 

Giant Moguls and old-time Baldwins 

And oil-burners on the Southern Pacific, 

Fire boxes wide open 

Flaring against the night, 

Like a tremendous watch fire 



54 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

Where the sentries cluster at their post. 

Trains, trains, trains 

Serpentine strings of cars 

Loaded with boys and men — 

The legion of the ten-year span 

To whom has been given the task 

Of seeking the Great Adventure. 

Swaying through the North and South, 

And East and West, 

Freighted with the Willing 

And the Unwilling; 

Packed with the Thinking 

And the Unthinking, 

Pushing on to the Unknown 

Away from the shelter and security 

Of the accustomed into the Great Adventure. 

Trains, trains, trains 

With their coach sides scrawled 

With chalked bravado and, sometimes, 

With their windows black 

With yelling boys, 

In open-mouthed exultation 

That they do not feel, 

Rushing farther and farther 

From the known into the unseeable. 

Trains, trains, trains 

With sky-larking boys in khaki, 

Munching sandwiches and drinking pop; 

Or, tired and without their depot swagger, 

Curled up on the red-plush seats; 

Or asleep, with a stranger, in the Pullmans. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 55 

They rush past our camp, 

Which lies against the railroad, 

With the crossing alarm jangling caution, 

And fade into the dust or night. 

Leaving us to conjecture where, 

As they have left others to wonder — 

As they must wonder themselves 

When they are done 

With the shouting and hand-shaking 

And kissing and hat-waving and singing. 

Trains, trains, trains 

Clicking on into unforecast days — 

Away from the shelter and security 

Of the accustomed into the Great Adventure. 



CHRIST IN FLANDERS 

L. W. 
In The Spectator 

"VW" E had forgotten You, or very nearly — 

You did not seem to touch us very nearly — 

Of course we thought about You now and then; 
Especially in any time of trouble — 
We knew that You were good in time of trouble — 

But we are very ordinary men. 

And there were always other things to think of — 
There's lots of things a man has got to think of — 

His work, his home, his pleasure, and his wife; 
And so we only thought of You on Sunday — 
Sometimes, perhaps, not even on a Sunday — 

Because there's always lots to fill one's life. 



56 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

And, all the while, in the street or lane or byway — 
In country lane, in city street, or byway — 

You walked among us, and we did not see. 
Your feet were bleeding as You walked our pavements- 
How did we miss Your Footprints on our pavements ?- 

Can there be other folk as blind as we? 

Now we remember; over here in Flanders — 
(It isn't strange to think of You in Flanders) — 

This hideous warfare seems to make things clear. 
We never thought about You much in England — 
But now that we are far away from England — 

We have no doubts, we know that You are here. 

You helped us pass the jest along the trenches — 
Where, in cold blood, we waited in the trenches — 

You touched its ribaldry and made it fine. 
You stood beside us in our pain and weakness — 
We're glad to think You understand our weakness — 

Somehow it seems to help us not to whine. 

We think about You kneeling in the Garden — 
Ah! God! the agony of that dread Garden — 
We know You prayed for us upon the Cross. 
If anything could make us glad to bear it — 
'T would be the knowledge that You willed to bear it- 
Pain — death — the uttermost of human loss. 

Though we forgot You — You will not forget us — 
We feel so sure that You will not forget us — 

But stay with us until this dream is past. 
And so we ask for courage, strength, and pardon — 
Especially, I think, we ask for pardon — 

And that You'll stand beside us to the last. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 57 

AN AMERICAN CREED 

EVERARD JACK APPLETON 

By permission of Stewart & Kidd Company, Cincinnati, Publishers 
of "With the Colors," by Everard Jack Appleton. Copyright, 1918. 

CTRAIGHT thinking, 

Straight talking, 
Straight doing, 
And a firm belief in the might of right. 

Patience linked with patriotism, 
Justice added to kindliness, 
Uncompromising devotion to this country, 
And active, not passive, Americanism. 

To talk less, to mean more, 
To complain less, to accomplish more, 
And to so live that every one of us is ready to look 
Eternity in the face at any moment, and be unafraid! 

RUNNER McGEE 

(Who had "Return if Possible" Orders.) 
EDGAR A. GUEST 
From Edgar A. Guest's book of war time rhymes, entitled "Over 
Here." Published and copyright, 1918, by The Reilly & Britton Company, 
Chicago. Special permission to insert in this book. 

TyTOU'VE heard a good deal of the telephone wires," 

He said as we sat at our ease, 
And talked of the struggle that's taking men's lives 

In these terrible days o'er the seas, 
"But I've been through the thick of the thing 

And I know when a battle's begun 
It isn't the 'phone you depend on for help. 

It's the legs of a boy who can run. 



58 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

"It isn't because of the 'phone that I'm here. 

Today you are talking to me 
Because of the grit and the pluck of a boy. 

His title was Runner McGee. 
We were up to our dead line an' fighting alone ; 

Some plan had miscarried, I guess, 
And the help we were promised had failed to arrive. 

We were showing all signs of distress. 

"Our curtain of fire was ahead of us still, 

An' theirs was behind us an' thick, 
An' there wasn't a thing we could do for ourselves — 

The few of us left had to stick. 
You haven't much chance to get central an' talk 

On the 'phone to the music of guns; 
Gettin' word to the chief is a matter right then 

That is up to the fellow who runs. 

"I'd sent four of 'em back with the R. I. P. sign, 

Which means to return if you can, 
But none of 'em got through the curtain of fire; 

My hurry call died with the man. 
Then Runner McGee said he'd try to get through. 

I hated to order the kid 
On his mission of death ; thought he'd never get by, 

But somehow or other he did. 

"Yes, he's dead. Died an hour after bringing us word 

That the chief was aware of our plight, 
An' for us to hang onto the ditch that we held; 

The reserves would relieve us at night. 
Then we stuck to our trench an' we stuck to our guns; 

You know how you'll fight when you know 
That new strength is coming to fill up the gaps. 

There's heart in the force of your blow. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 59 

"It wasn't till later I got all the facts. 

They wanted McGee to remain. 
They begged him to stay. He had cheated death once, 

An' was foolish to try it again. 
'R. I. P. are my orders,' he answered them all, 

'An' back to the boys I must go; 
Four of us died comin' out with the news. 

It will help them to know that you know.' " 



THE SOLDIER'S FOLKS AT HOME 

From The Christian Herald 

"VW"E often sit upon the porch on sultry August nights, 
When fireflies out upon the lawn are soft enchanted 
lights 
From Fairyland; when, far away, a vagrant nightingale 
Is sobbing from a bursting heart his tragic untold tale. 
We often sit upon the porch, quite silently, for we 
Are seeing golden wonder-worlds that no one else may see. 

My mother sighs; I feel her hand upon my ruffled hair, 
The while I know she thinks of one, of one who is not 

there. . . . 
And grandma, with her down-bent head, is dreaming of 

the day 
When to the strains of "Dixie Land" her sweetheart 

marched away. 
And brother stares into the dusk, with vivid eyes aflame, 
And hears the stirring call to arms, to battle and to fame ! 

My little sister, half asleep, holds tight against her breast 
A battered doll with china eyes that she herself has 
dressed ; 



60 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

And baby brother holds my hand, and thinks of cakes and 

toys 
That grow on trees in some fair land for perfect little 

boys. 
And auntie holds her head erect, and seems to dare the 

fates 
With eyes that hold the glowing look of one who hopes 

and waits. 

We often sit upon the porch on sultry August nights 

When fireflies out upon the lawn are vague enchanted 
lights, 

And no one speaks, for each one dreams and plans, per- 
haps, and strays, 

A wanderer through years to come, a ghost through 
bygone days, 

And as the stars far in the sky come shining softly 
through, 

My heart and soul are all one prayer — one silver prayer 
for you. 

THREE HILLS 

EVERARD OWEN 

From Mr. Owen's book, "Three Hills and Other Poems." Sidgwick 
& Jackson. Ltd., Publishers, London, England. Special permission to 
insert in this book. 

HPHERE is a hill in England, 

Green fields and a school I know, 
Where the balls fly fast in summer, 
And the whispering elm-trees grow, 

A little hill, a dear hill, 
And the playing fields below. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 61 

There is a hill in Flanders, 
Heaped with a thousand slain, 

Where the shells fly night and noontide 
And the ghosts that died in vain — 

A little hill, a hard hill, 
To the souls that died in pain. 

There is a hill in Jewry, 

Three crosses pierce the sky, 
On the midmost He is dying 

To save all those who die — 
A little hill, a kind hill 

To souls in jeopardy. 

MIKE DILLON, DOUGHBOY 

LIEUT. JOHN PIERRE ROCHE 

From Lieutenant Roche's book of poems, "Rimes in Olive Drab." 
Robert M. McBride & Company, Publishers, New York. Copyright, 1918. 
Special permission to insert in this book. 

"Doughboy" is an old nickname for a United States infantryman. 
When our army went into what is now New Mexico, Arizona and 
California to quiet the Mexicans hostilities that preceded the war of 
1846, the infantry fell into a way of camping in houses built by the 
natives with sun-dried bricks of adobe mud. The cavalry, having to 
lie in the open with the horses, were joked thereat and came back 
by calling the infantry dobie boys. The name stuck and by an easy slide 
arrived at the present form. 

TyTIKE DILLON was a doughboy 

And wore the issue stuff; 
He wasn't much to look at — 

In fact, was rather rough; 
He served his time as rookie — 

At drilling in the sun, 
And cleared a lot of timber 

And polished up his gun. 

Mike Dillon was a private 
With all the word entails; 



62 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

He cussed and chewed tobacco 
And overlooked his nails. 

You never saw Mike Dillon 
At dances ultra nice; 

In fact, inspection found him 
Enjoying body lice. 

If Mike had married money 

Or had a little drag, 
He might have got a brevet 

And missed a little "fag"; 
But as a social figure 

He simply wasn't there — 
So Mike continued drilling 

And knifing up his fare. 

In course of time they shipped 'em 

And shipped 'em over where 
A man like Mike can sidestep 

The frigid social stare, 
And do the job of soldier 

Without the fancy frills, 
And keep a steady footing 

In the pace that really kills. 

Now Mike did nothing special ; 

He only did his best: 
He stuck and "went on over" — 

And got it in the chest ; 
He played it fair and squarely 

Without a social air, 
And Mike is now in heaven 

And at least a corporal there! 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 63 

EPYLLIA POLEMIA 

"GALVIN O'CLAIRE" 
in B. L. T.'s column, The Chicago Tribune 

/"1EORGE was a man of nigh fifty years, 

With hair of a grizzly gray, 
And he either wore specs when reading a book, 

Or held it a yard away. 
His porcelain teeth all shiny and white 

Took root in the snags of his prime, 
And a little blond down still clung to his crown, 

Suggesting an earlier time. 

A farmer was George, and a "pote" on the side, 

He shocked both the public and wheat; 
Blank verse for a mule he could tell by the rule 

Of just counting the number of feet. 
Now the War was to George a terrible blow, 

And he often got low in his mind 
As he thought of the panic the Junkers Germanic 

Had caused unsuspecting mankind. 

"Alas, I can't write any more," he would moan. 

"Inspiration has utterly fled; 
I plant and I hoe, I tread the long row 

With a heart that is heavy as lead. 
The grass and the grain, the flowers and birds — 

Ah, the birds! — are now but a name; 
My stream has run dry, my time has gone by, 

I'll never again be the same. 

"Time was when at night I could pick up my quill 

And skim the high heaven's expanse ; 
But it's all I can do now to follow the coups 



64 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

Of the armies that struggle in France." 
One day George's boy blew in like a breeze, 

A Lieutenant on leave from Camp Custer. 
Now George is no babe, but he fell to his knees 

In the grip of this Brobdingnag Buster. 

"Oh, Pop, ain't it great! Next week we are off! 

It's the Greatest Adventure of hist'ry; 
How the world can be blue when it's being made new 

Is to me a mysterious myst'ry! 
Keep *er going while we're gone with your plow and 
your pen, 

Give us wheat, give us meat by the ton ; 
Then tell the whole earth what a wonderful birth 

Awaits it when we shall have done!" 

George felt so much better when son went away 

That he sped him with never a tear, 
Came home with a grin running right off his chin, 

And wrote what you see written here. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 65 

THE SOUL OF AMERICA 

"CROM the earliest hour of our history, when the thought 
of nationhood was forming, the greatest Americans 
have held one concept of what we were to be, and are, and 
shall be. Devotion to the vital principle of liberty, a 
jealous care for the rights of man, a passionate readiness 
for war in defense of that principle and those rights, 
runs through all their utterances, from those of Wash- 
ington and Patrick Henry to those of Woodrow Wilson. 

When he was urging union among the colonies and 
resistance to the German monarch then occupying the 
throne of England, Patrick Henry declared that "All dis- 
tinctions are thrown down; all America is thrown into 
one mass. The distinctions between Virginians, Penn- 
sylvanians, New Yorkers and New Englanders are no 
more. I am not a Virginian, but an American." 

Washington warned us that "A free people ought not 
only to be armed but disciplined ; to which end a uniform 
and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and 
interest require that they should promote such manufac- 
tories as tend to render them independent of others for 
essential, particularly military, supplies." 

And in his speech of July 13, 1798, accepting from 
President Adams the office of Commander-in-Chief of 
the American Armies, Washington said this: 

"Satisfied, therefore, that you have sincerely wished 
and endeavored to avert the war, and exhausted to the 
last drop the cup of reconciliation, we can with pure 
hearts appeal to heaven for the justice of our cause, and 
may confidently trust the final result to that kind Prov- 
idence who has heretofore and so often signally favored 
the people of the United States." 



66 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

President Adams in 1798 stated a position that might 
have been profitably reoccupied by the nation before we 
had to declare war on Germany: 

"In demonstrating by our conduct that we do not fear 
war in the necessary protection of our rights and honor, 
we shall give no room to infer that we abandon the desire 
for peace. An efficient preparation for war can alone in- 
sure peace." 

President Madison, in the grave crisis of 1813, set up 
the same obligation that carried us into war in 1917. "It 
is fortunate for the United States," said he, "that they 
have it in their power to meet the enemy in this deplor- 
able contest, as it is honorable to them that they do not 
join in it but under the most imperious obligations, and 
with the humane purpose of effectuating a return to the 
established usages of war." 

And again in that same year, President Madison said 
that "Although among our blessings we cannot number 
an exemption from the evils of war, yet these will never 
be regarded as the greatest evils by the friends of liberty 
and the rights of nations." 

President Andrew Jackson in 1832 asked the people to 
"Contemplate the condition of that country of which you 
form an important part. Consider its Government, unit- 
ing in one bond of common interest and general protec- 
tion so many different States, giving to all their inhab- 
itants the proud title of American Citizen. Behold it 
as an asylum where the wretched and oppressed find a 
refuge and support. Look on this picture of happiness 
and honor and say, 'We, too, are citizens of America.' " 

President Jackson might have been speaking in our 
own day when on March 4, 1833, he said, "The eyes 
of all nations are fixed on our Republic. Great is the 
stake placed in our hands ; great is the responsibility which 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 67 

must rest upon the people of the United States. Let us 
realize the importance of the attitude in which we stand 
before the world." 

Robert C. Winthrop, one of the most active influences 
in shaping American policies before the war with Mexico, 
in a Fourth of July speech in 1845 keyed the people up 
to meet the trouble that threatened our borders: 

"Our country — whether bounded by the St. John's and 
the Sabine, or however otherwise bounded or described, 
and be the measurements more or less: — still Our Coun- 
try, to be cherished in all our hearts, and to be defended 
by all our hands." 

And that sentiment is good for all time. 

Abraham Lincoln, in one of the most simple yet noble 
of all orations, said these memorable things at Gettys- 
burg, in 1863: 

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought 
forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, 
and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created 
equal. 

"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing 
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so 
dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great bat- 
tlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a por- 
tion of that field as a final resting-place of those who 
here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is 
altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 

"But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot 
consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave 
men, living and dead, who struggled here, have conse- 
crated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. 
The world will little note nor long remember what we 
say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It 



68 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the 
unfinished work which they who fought here have thus 
far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here 
dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that 
from these honored dead we take increased devotion to 
that cause for which they gave the last full measure of 
devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead 
shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, 
shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government 
of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not per- 
ish from the earth." 

General Grant in his inaugural speech; March 4, 1869, 
with the memory of a vast war still fresh, said what if 
he were with us he would say to the young men who 
have gone forth to war for their country on European 
battlefields : 

"The young men of the country — those who from their 
age must be its rulers twenty-five years hence — have a 
peculiar interest in maintaining the national honor. A 
moment's reflection as to what will be our commanding 
influence among the nations of the earth in their day 
if they are only true to themselves, should inspire them 
with national pride." 

Franklin K. Lane, of President Wilson's cabinet, car- 
ries forward the thought of the Fathers: 

"We came into this war for ourselves. It is a war 
to save America, to preserve self-respect, to justify our 
right to live as we have lived, not as some one else wishes 
us to live. It is more precious that this America shall 
live than that we Americans should live. . . . We cannot 
forget Liege, Louvain and Cardinal Mercier. Translated 
into terms of American history these names stand for 
Lexington, Bunker Hill and Patrick Henry. We still 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 69 

hear piteous cries of children coming up out of the sea 
where the Lusitania went down. And Germany has never 
asked forgiveness of the world." 

President Wilson himself, in his declaration of war, 
took up the theme in very solemn tones: 

"We have no selfish ends to serve," he said. "We 
desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities 
for ourselves and no material compensation for the sacri- 
fices we shall freely make. . . . We fight for the things 
we have always carried nearest to our hearts, for the 
right of those who submit to authority to have a voice 
in their own government, for the rights and liberties of 
small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such 
concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to 
all nations and make the world itself free. 

"To such a task we dedicate our lives and our for- 
tunes — everything that we are and everything that we 
have, with the pride of those who know that the day 
has come when America is privileged to spend her blood 
and her might for the principles that gave her birth and 
happiness, and the peace which she has treasured. 

"God helping her, she can do no other!" 

TO SOMEBODY 

HAROLD SETON 

in Munsey's Magazine 

Permission to reproduce in this book. 

'T'HEY'VE put us through our paces; 

They say we're doing fine; 
We'll soon go to our places 

Upon the firing-line. 
Some chaps will fight for mothers, 

And some for wives so true; 



70 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

For sweethearts many others, 
And I will fight for you! 

Through all these months of training 

We've cherished hopeful thoughts 
And drilled without complaining, 

Like soldiers and good sports. 
We're warring for a reason, 

We've sworn to see this through ; 
To falter would be treason, 

And I will fight for you! 

Your presence will be near me, 

Your voice will call my name ; 
You'll comfort me and cheer me, 

Your love, behold, I claim ! 
'Twould take more than an ocean 

To separate us two ; 
I'll hold unto this notion, 

And I will fight for you! 



WAR 

COL. WILLIAM LIGHTFOOT VISSCHER 
in The Scoop, the Chicago Press Club's Magazine 

"D Y blazing homes, through forests torn 

And blackened harvest fields, 
The grim and drunken god of war 
In frenzied fury reels. 

His breath — the sulph'rous stench of guns — 

That death and famine deals 
And Pity, pleading, wounded falls 

Beneath his steel-shod heels. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 71 

A MARCHING SOLILOQUY 

BY A MEMBER OF THE S. A. T. C, NORTHWESTERN 
COLLEGE, NAPERVILLE, ILL. 

"Left! 
Left!" 
Had a good girl when I 
"Left! 
Left!" 
Mighty good pal when I 

"Left!" 
"One! Two! Three! Four!" 
How 
many 
miles 
more? 
"Left! 

"Left! 
Left!" 
Booked for a wife when I 
"Left! 
Left!" 
That was my life when I 

"Left!" 
"One! Two! Three! Four!" 
Hear 
old 

Lieutenant 
roar 
"Left!" 



72 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

WHILE SUMMERS PASS 

ALINE MICHAELIS 
in The Enterprise, Beaumont, Texas 

CUMMER comes and summer goes, 
Buds the primrose, fades the rose; 

But his footfall on the grass, 
Coming swiftly to my door, 
I shall hear again no more, 

Though a thousand summers pass. 

Once he loved the clovers well, 
Loved the larkspur and bluebell-. 

And the scent the plum-blooms yield; 
But strange flowers his soul beguiled, 
Pallid lilies, laurels wild, 

Blooming in a crimson field. 

So he plucked the laurels there, 
And he found them sweet and fair 

In that field of blood-red hue; 
And, when on a summer night 
Moonlight drenched my clovers white, 

Lo! He plucked Death's lilies, too. 

It may be that e'en to-night, 
In the Gardens of Delight, 

Where his shining soul must dwell, 
He has found some flowers more sweet 
Than the clovers at my feet, 

Some celestial asphodel. 

But while summer comes and goes, 
With the primrose and the rose 

Comes his footfall on the grass — 
Gladly, lightly to my door — 
I shall hear it echo o'er, 

Though a thousand summers pass. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 73 

THE MARINES 

ADOLPHE E. SMYLIE 
of The Vigilantes 
Permission to reproduce in this book 

"PARDON! he has no Engleesh, heem, 

II ne parle que Franchise, 
I spile it leetle some Monsieur, 

Vaire bad, j'en suis fache — 
Marines? Mais oui! I fight wiz zem 

At Chateau Thierry 
An' on ze Ourcq an' Marne in grand 

Bon camaraderie. 
I see zem fight at bois Belleau, 

Like sauvage make ze yell, — 
Sacre nom de Dieu! zoze sailor man 

Eez fightin' like ze hell! 
All time zey smile when make ze push, 

Magnifique zaire elan, 
Zey show ze heart of lion 

For delight our brav Franchman. 
An' in ze tranch at rest, zoze troop 

From ze Etats Unis 
Queeck make ze good frien' of poilu 

Wiz beeg slap on ze knee! 
Zey make ze song an' joke, si drole 

An' pass ze cigarette; 
Zey call us goddam good ol' scout 

Like Marquis La Fayette. 
Next day, mebbee, again ze taps — 

Ze volley in ze air. — 
Adieu! some fightin' sailor man 

Eez gone West. C'est la guerre! 
No more ze smile, ze hug, ze hand 

Queeck wiz ze cigarette; 



74 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

C'est vrai, at funerall of heem 

Ze poilu's eye eez wet. 
But, every day like tidal wave, — 

Like human avalanche, — 
Ze transport bring more Yankee troop, 

To get ze beeg revanche! 
Zen from ze heart Americaine 

Come milliards of monnaie; 
Eet eez ze end ! Your countree bring 

Triomphant liberte. 
So, au revoir! I mus' go on 

But first I tell to you 
What some high Officier remark 

Zat day at bois Belleau. 
He say, our great Napoleon 

Wiz envy would turn green 
Eef he could see zoze sailor man, — 

Zoze Oncle Sam Marines!" 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 75 

NOT TOO OLD TO FIGHT 

T. C. HARBAUGH 
in The Chicago Ledger 

"VTY name Is Danny Bloomer and my age is eighty- 
three, 
Years ago I went with Sherman to the ever sunny sea. 
I stood my ground at Gettysburg, that bloody summer 

day, 
When gallant Pickett rushed the hill and lost his boys 

in gray; 
And now our starry banner is insulted and defied, 
The kaiser tears it into shreds and glories in his pride; 
Just pass the word across the sea to his stronghold of 

might, 
And say that Danny Bloomer's here and not too old to 

fight. 

I gave my youth to Uncle Sam in years I'll ne'er forget, 
In mem'ry of those stirring times my old blood tingles 

yet. 
With four score years upon me I can lift the same old 

gun, 
And to face our Flag's insulter will be everlasting fun. 
Please say that Danny Bloomer is ready for the fray, 
Cry "Forward, march!" and see him in the good old 

ranks today. 
I love the flag of Washington because it stands for Right, 
And that is why I tell you I am not too old to fight. 

'Tis true I'm somewhat crippled, but I do not care for 

that, 
I feel as young as when I saw the tilt of Sherman's hat ; 
I want to do my duty again before I die, 
And see Old Glory proudly in the streets of Berlin fly. 



16 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

I do not know the kaiser, but I hope within a year 
Amid the roar of cannon he will say, "Old Bloomer's 

here!" 
Yes, hand me down a rifle and I will use it right, 
Your Uncle Danny Bloomer isn't yet too old to fight. 
We've borne their insults long enough — they make me 

long to go. 
I want to squint along my gun and aim it at the foe; 
I'll eat the same old rations that I ate in '64, 
And feel the blood of youth again amid the battle's roar. 
I haven't long to tarry here until my work is done, 
But I want to show the kaiser we're not in it for fun ; 
So give me marching orders and I'll disappear from 

sight, 
For I am Danny Bloomer, and I'm not too old to fight. 



A WAYSIDE IN FRANCE 

ADOLPHE E. SMYLIE 
in The New York Herald 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

'<POME shake hands, my little peach blossom. 

That's right, dear, climb up on my knee. 
This big Yankee soldier is lonesome — 
Ah, now we'll be friends, ma cherie. 
We won't understand one another, 
Your round eyes are telling me so, 
But the cling of your chubby fingers 
Is a language that all daddies know. 
When I caught a sight of your pigtails 
And those eyes of violet blue, 
It made me heart-hungry, ma petite, 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 77 

For I've a wee girl just like you. 

She lives 'way across the wide ocean, 

Out where the bald eagles nest, 

And she knows all the chipmunks and gophers 

At my shack out in the West." 

"Tu dis l'ouest! Est-ce ton pays? 
Veux-tu, quand tu iras chez-toi — 
Maman est toujours a pleurer — 
Me retrouver mon soldat Papa? 
II etait avec sa batterie 
Pres des Anglais la, en campagne, 
Mais Papa est alle dans l'ouest, 
Des Anglais disaient a Maman. 
Alors, Maman sera heureuse 
Et, tu vois elle ne pleurera plus; 
Je veux te donner un baiser, — 
Merci ! Tu es si bon pour nous !" 

There she goes! She told me her secret, 

Kissed me and then flew away, — 

Say, Poilu! You savez some English, 

Now what did that little tot say ? 

"She say Engleeshman tol' her Mama 

Zat her soldat Papa eez gone West ! 

You said West, bien ! Zen you live zaire, 

So she make you her leetle request, 

Zat you find heem in your countree 

So her Mama no more she weel cry; 

Zen she thank you an' kees you, si joyeuse, — 

Pauvre mignonne, she think you weel try!" 



78 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

MISSING 

"IRIS" 
From B. L. T.'s Column in The Chicago Tribune 

'""PHE soldier boys are marching, are marching past my 

door ; 
They're off to fight for Freedom, to wage and win the 

war; 
And yet I cannot cheer them, my eyes are full of tears — 
My son, who should be with them, is dead these many 

years. 

I've missed his boyish laughter, I've missed his simny 

ways, 
I've lived alone with sorrow through endless empty days. 
But now my bitter longing dims all the grief before — 
His boyhood friends are marching, without him, past my 
door. 

I've envied happy mothers the children at their knee; 
Their very joys seemed given to mock my grief and me. 
Time healed those wounds, but this one will pain me 

while I live — 
When Freedom called her warriors, I had no son to give. 

And still the boys are marching, are marching toward the 

sea, 
To suffer and to conquer, that all men may be free. 
Be glad for them, O mothers ! and leave to me the tears — 
My son, who should be with them, is dead these many 

years. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 79 

THE RIVERS OF FRANCE 

H. J. M. 
in The English Review 

'T'HE rivers of France are ten score and twain, 
**■ But five are the names that we know — 
The Marne, the Vesle, the Ourcq, and the Aisne, 
And the Somme of the swampy flow. 

The rivers of France, from source to the sea, 

Are nourished by many a rill, 
But these five, if ever a drought there be, 

The fountains of sorrow would fill. 

The rivers of France shine silvery white, 

But the waters of five are red 
With the richest blood, in the fiercest fight 

For Freedom, that ever was shed. 

The rivers of France sing soft as they run, 

But five have a song of their own, 
That hymns the fall of the arrogant one 

And the proud cast down from his throne. 

The rivers of France all quietly take 
To sleep in the house of their birth, 

But the carnadined wave of five shall break 
On the uttermost strands of Earth. 

Five rivers of France, see their names are writ 

On a banner of crimson and gold, 
And the glory of those who fashioned it 

Shall nevermore cease to be told. 



80 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

JUST THINKING 

HUDSON HAWLEY 
in The Stars and Stripes, A. E. F., France 

CTANDIN' up here on the fire-step, 

Loolcin' ahead in the mist, 
With a tin hat over your ivory 

And a rifle clutched in your fist; 
Waitin' and watchin' and wond'rin' 

If the Hun's comin' over tonight — 
Say, aren't the things you think of 

Enough to give you a fright? 

Things you ain't even thought of 

For a couple o' months or more; 
Things that 'ull set you laughin', 

Things that 'ull make you sore ; 
Things that you saw in the movies, 

Things that you saw on the street, 
Things that you're really proud of 

Things that are — not so sweet; 

Debts that are past collectin', 

Stories you hear and forget, 
Ball games and birthday parties, 

Hours of drill in the wet; 
Headlines, recruitin' posters, 

Sunset 'way out at sea, 
Evenings of pay-days — golly — 

It's a queer thing, this memory! 

Faces of pals in Homeburg, 

Voices of womenfolk, 
Verses you learnt in schooldays 

Pop up in the mist and smoke 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 



As you stand there grippin' that rifle, 
A-starin', and chilled to the bone, 

Wonderin' and wonderin' and wonderin', 
Just thinkin' there — all alone: 

When will the war be over? 

When will the gang break through ? 
What will the U. S. look like? 

What will there be to do? 
Where will the Boches be then? 

Who will have married Nell? 
When's the relief a-comin' up? — 

Gosh ! But this thinkin's hell ! 



THE EVENING STAR 

HAROLD SETON 
in The Chicago Evening Post 

HTHE evening star a child espied, 

The one star in the sky. 
"Is that God's service flag?" he cried, 
And waited for reply. 

The mother paused a moment ere 

She told the little one — 
"Yes, that is why the star is there! 

God gave His only Son!" 



82 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

COLUMBIA'S PRAYER 

THOMAS P. BASHAW 

in The Herald and Examiner, Chicago 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

"DOY in khaki, boy in blue, 

I am watching over you, 
Going forth amid the rattle 
Of the drums that call to battle. 

Oft have men waged fight for me, 
Fought to make their brothers free; 
God protect and succor you, 
Boy in khaki, boy in blue. 

God go with you on your mission, 
And in His all-wise decision 
Turn this tide of war to you, 
Boy in khaki, boy in blue. 

With the Stars and Stripes high o'er you, 
Snatch the vic'try just before you, 
Heaven keep, encompass you, 
Boy in khaki, boy in blue. 

When the foe is rent asunder, 
And the world looks on in wonder, 
Paying tribute rare to you, 
Boy in khaki, boy in blue, 

God return you safe to me; 
To Columbia — Liberty; 
'Tis my prayer, my hope for you, 
Boy in khaki, boy in blue. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 83 

TWO VIEWPOINTS 

AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR 

of The Vigilantes 

Permission to reproduce in this book. 

A German soldier in his journal wrote: 

TJE was a French Boy Scout — a little lad 

No bigger than my Hansel. He refused 
To tell if any of his countrymen 
Were hidden thereabout. Fifty yards on 
We ran into an ambush. Well, of course 
We shot him — little fool! Poor little fool! 
Thinking himself a hero as he stood 
Facing our guns, so little and so young 
Against the sunny vineyard-green, I thought 
What wasted courage ! for the child was brave, 
Fool as he was. The pity . 

Here there came 
A sudden shrapnel, and the writing stopped. . . . 

Did I write that? O God — did I write that? 

Mine — they were mine, the folly and the waste. 

Now the keen edge of death has cut away 

The eyelids of my soul and I must bear 

The perfect understanding of the dead. 

Now that I know myself as I am known, 

How shall my soul endure Eternity? 

God, God, if there be pity left for me, 

Send to my son the child that I despised 

A messenger to burn into his soul 

While still he lives, the truth I died to learn! 



84 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 



DESTROYERS 

"KLAXON" 
in Blackwoods Magazine 

^THROUGH the dark night 
■*" And the fury of battle 
Pass the destroyers in showers of spray. 
As the Wolf-pack to the flank of the cattle, 
We shall close in on them — shadows of gray. 

In from ahead, 

Through shell-flashes red, 
We shall come down to them, after the Day, 

Whistle and crash 

Of salvo and volley 
Round us and into us as we attack 
Light on our target they'll flash in their folly, 
Splitting our ears with shrapnel-crack. 

Fire as they will, 

We'll come to them still, 
Roar as they may at us — Back — Go Back! 

White though the sea 

To the shell-splashes foaming, 
We shall be there at the death of the Hun. 
Only we pray for a star in the gloaming 
(Light for torpedoes and none for a gun). 

Lord — of Thy Grace 

Make it a race, 
Over the sea with the night to run. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 85 



NINETEEN-SEVENTEEN 

SUSAN HOOKER WHITMAN 
in The Kansas City Star 

<*TT is long since knighthood was in flower, 
There are no men today who tower 
Above their kind — the knights are dust, 
Their names forgot, their good swords rust," 
We idly say. And yet, in truth — 
The brave soul has eternal youth, 
Like the great lighthouse rising free, 
Whose far-flung beams guide ships at sea, 
God lifts above his fellow man 
A steadfast soul to dare and plan, 
A king of men, by right divine, 
Who in his forehead bears the sign — 
He walks along the city street; 
Unknowing, in the fields we meet 
A modern knight in whose hand lies 
A mighty Nation's destinies. 

Then say no more, the knights are gone; 
Honor and Truth and Right live on, 
And men today would keep the bridge 
Horatius kept — from rocky ridge 
Heroic Youth would still fling down 
His horse, himself, to save the town. 

Columbia calls! 
Off with your hats and lift them high, 
Our own, our sons are passing by. 



86 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

THE SILENT ARMY. 

IAN ADANAC 
in The Montreal Daily Star 

"^ r O bugle is blown, no roll of drums, 

No sound of an army marching. 
No banners wave high, no battle-cry 
Comes from the war-worn fields where they lie, 
The blue sky overarching. 
The call sounds clearer than the bugle call 
From this silent, dreamless army. 
"No cowards were we, when we heard the call, 
For freedom we grudged not to give our all," 
Is the call from the silent army. 

Hushed and quiet and still they lie, 

This silent, dreamless army, 

While living comrades spring to their side, 

And the bugle-call and the battle-cry 

Are heard as dreamer and dreamless lie 

Under the stars of the arching sky, 

The men who have heard from the men who have died 

The call of the silent army. 

THE SOURCE OF NEWS 

From The Needle 

A BSOLUTE knowledge I have none, 
But my aunt's washerwoman's son 
Heard a policeman on his beat 
Say to a laborer in the street 
That he had a letter just last week, 
Written in the finest Greek, 

From a Chinese coolie in Timbuctoo, 
Who said the niggers in Cuba knew 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 87 

Of a colored man in a Texas town 
Who got it straight from a circus clown, 
That a man in Klondike heard the news 
From a gang of South American Jews, 
About somebody in Bamboo 
Who heard a man who claimed he knew 
Of a swell society female rake 
Whose mother-in-law will undertake 
To prove that her husband's sister's niece 
Has stated in a printed piece 

That she has a son who has a friend 
Who knows when the war is going to end. 



TO MY SON 

A poem, anonymous, sent to the Chicago Evening Post by one 
whose son's regiment was leaving for France. 

"K/f Y son, at last the fateful day has come 

For us to part. The hours have nearly run. 
May God return you safe to land and home; 
Yet, what God wills, so may His will be done. 

Draw tight the belt about your slender frame ; 

Flash blue your eyes! Hold high your proud young 
head! 
Today you march in Liberty's fair name, 

To save the line enriched by France's dead ! 

I would not it were otherwise. And yet 

'Tis hard to speed your marching forth, my son ! 

'Tis doubly hard to live without regret 
For love unsaid, and kindnesses undone. 



88 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

But would the chance were mine with you to stand 
Upon those shores and see our flag unfurled! 

To fight on France's brave, unconquered land 
With Liberty's great sword for all the world! 

Beyond the waves, my son, the siren calls, 
The sky is black and Fastnet lies abreast; 

A signal rocket flings its stars and falls 

Across the night to welcome England's guest. 

When mid the scud you see the Cornish lights, 

And through the mist you hear faint' Devon chimes, 

Thank God for memories of those other nights 
And days on other ships in happier times. 

Perhaps you'll stand within the pillared nave 
And aisles where colored sundust falls, and see 

Old Canterbury Church where Becket gave 
His life's best blood for England's liberty! 

Some night you'll walk, perhaps, on Salisbury plain; 

Above Stonehenge the Druid's stars still sleep, 
And on the turf within the circled fane 

Beneath the autumn moon still lie the sheep. 

And if you march beside some Kentish hedge, 

And blackberries hang thick clustered o'er the ways, 

Pluck down a branch! Rest by the road's brown edge; 
Eat! Nor forget our last vacation days! 

And then the trench in battle-scarred Lorraine; 

The town half burned but held in spite of hell ; 
The bridge twice taken, lost, and won again ; 

The cratered glacis ripped with mine and shell. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 89 

The leafless trees, bare-branched in spite of June; 

The sodden road, the desolated plain; 
The mateless birds, the season out of tune; 

Fair France, at bay, is calling through her pain. 

Oh, son! My son! God keep you safe and free — 
Our flag and you ! But if the hour must come 

To choose at last 'twixt self and liberty — 

We'll close our eyes ! So let God's will be done ! 



THE STAY-BEHINDS 

J. H. F. 
in The Chicago Tribune 

"VTE soldiers in the trenches lined, 
And sailors on the parlous sea, 
A hail from us who stay behind 

In shop and forge reluctantly! 
We pound the iron hot and red, 
Longing to pound a Boche's head. 

O sentry at the listening post, 

The night is dark, the night is drear, 
Take heart : at home a shining host 

Of factory lights are winking clear. 
The night shift's on, a willing crew: 
We work for you, we pull for you. 

In those who only fight to live, 
Who helpless lie on beds of pain, 

Burns deep the wish that they might give 
Some aid and comfort not in vain. 

Good luck to you, the tried and true; 

We pull for you, we pray for you. 



90 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

Long is the way and hard the fight, 
But who shall stay our gallant men! 

We stay-behinds, with main and might, 
Will see you through and home again. 

O lads in khaki, lads in blue, 

We'll pull for you, we'll work for you. 



A DIRGE 

VICTOR PEROWNE 
in The London Times 

HTHOU art no longer here, 

No longer shall we see thy face. 
But, in that other place, 
Where may be heard 
The roar of the world rushing down the wantways of the 

stars ; 
And the silver bars 
Of heaven's gate 
Shine soft and clear: 
Thou mayest wait. 

No longer shall we see 
Thee walking in the crowded streets, 
But where the ocean of the Future beats 
Against the flood-gates of the Present, swirling to this 
earth, 

Another birth 

Thou mayest have ; 

Another Arcady 

May thee receive. 

Not here thou dost remain, 

Thou art gone far away, 






THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 91 

Where, at the portals of the day, 

The hours ever dance in ring, a silvern-footed throng, 

While time looks on, 
And seraphs stand 
Choiring an endless strain 
On either hand. 

Thou canst return no more; 
Not as the happy time of spring 
Comes after winter burgeoning 

On wood and wold in folds of living green, for thou art 
dead. 

Our tears we shed 
In vain, for thou 
Dost pace another shore, 
Untroubled now. 



THE WOMAN'S GAME 

Authorship not known 

"VJ^TAS there ever a game we did not share, 

Brother of mine? 
Or a day when I did not play you fair, 

Brother of mine? 
"As good as a boy," you used to say, 
And I was as eager for the fray, 
And as loath to cheat or to run away, 

Brother of mine! 

You are playing the game that is straight and true, 

Brother of mine, 
And I'd give my soul to stand next to you, 

Brother of mine. 



92 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

The spirit, indeed, is still the same ; 
I would not shrink from the battle's flame, 
Yet here I stay — at the woman's game, 
Brother of mine! 

If the last price must needs be paid, 

Brother of mine, 
You will go forward, unafraid, 

Brother of mine. 
Death can so small a part destroy, 
You will have known the fuller joy — 
Ah ! would that I had been born a boy, 

Brother of mine! 

A FLEMISH VILLAGE 

H. A. 

in London Spectator 

/^lONE is the spire that slept for centuries, 

Whose image in the water, calm and low, 
Was mingled with the lilies green and snow, 
And lost itself in river mysteries. 
The church lies broken near the fallen spire ; 
For here, among these old and human things 
Death swept along the street with feet of fire, 
And went upon his way with moaning wings. 
Above the cluster of these homes forlorn, 
Where giant fleeces of the shells are rolled, 
O'er pavements by the kneeling herdsmen worn, 
The wounded saints look out to see their fold. 

And silence follows fast, no evening peace, 
But leaden stillness, when the thunder wanes, 
Haunting the slender branches of the trees, 
And settling low upon the listless plains. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 93 

FRANCE 

CAPT. JOSEPH MEDILL PATTERSON 

in The Chicago Tribune 
From the French of Armentier Ohanian 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

f WAS an exile from my own country and wandered 
over the breast of the world seeking another country. 
And I came into a land where there was only a long 
spring and a long autumn, where they did not know the 
deadly heats of our summers or the mortal colds of our 
mountains. Among the vines and sunny fields I saw the 
people of this land at work, ever young of soul, smiling, 
loving, and kindly. 

I asked, "What is the name of this happy place?" 
And the answer was, "France the voluptuous." 
I came to towns of splendid monuments, of harmoni- 
ous buildings, of proud triumphal arches of the past, and 
above always I saw the spires of great cathedrals stretch- 
ing toward the sky, as if to seize upon the feet of God. 
I asked, "What is the name of this marvelous land?" 
And the answer was, "France the glorious." 
I advanced again, when I was struck by the red color 
of a large river. ... It was a river of warm blood 
that rolled down from afar in thick and heavy waves. 
I advanced again. Before me dark clouds of smoke hid 
the endless sky above huge fields of warriors in battle; 
when these died smiling at death others took their places, 
singing. 

I asked, "What is the name of this chivalrous land?" 
And the answer was, "France the courageous." 
At last I came to an immense city, of which I saw 
neither the beginning nor the end, a city full of sumptu- 
ous palaces, of parks, and fountains. The sun glistened 
on the marble of the streets and kissed the serene, resigned 



94 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

faces of women clothed in black. The chimes of churches 
filled the air with solemn sounds, and words, until then 
unknown to me, "Te Deum," came from the throats of 
thousands of thousands. 

With respect I asked, "What is the name of this land 
that mourns?" 

And the answer was, "France the victorious." 
I kissed the earth of this land and said, "I have found 
my country, who was an exile." 



THE CLERK 

B. H. M. HETHERINGTON 
in The London Bookman 

T)ERCHED upon an office stool, neatly adding figures, 

With cuffs gone shiny and a pen behind his ear; 
Deep in Liabilities, Goods and Double Entry, 
So he worked from year to year. 

Diligent and careful, hedged about with figures, 
Given soul and body to discount and per cent; 

Bounded by the columns of Purchase Book and Journal, 
Soberly his moments went. 

Now his pen has ceased from adding rows of figures, 
Ceased from ruling ledgers and entering amounts: 

Clad in sodden khaki, with a gun in Flanders 
He is balancing accounts. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 95 

POILU 

STEUART M. EMERY, A. E. F. 
in The Stars and Stripes 

The traditional friendship between the United States and France 
has been recemented under the fire of German guns. In France they 
celebrated our Fourth of July ; in this country, we celebrated the 
Fourteenth of July, the anniversary of the fall of the Bastile. Yank 
and Poilu are brothers in war, don't mind the languages. The inex- 
tinguishable humor of France never showed more quaintly than in 
that word, "Poilu." It means "unshaven." More freely, "a man who 
needs a shave." A whimsical comment upon the French soldier's way 
of letting his beard grow while he is in the field. Those boys are like 
the English and our own. They smile at misery. They are good old 
sports, bless 'em ! 

"VTOU'RE a funny fellow, poilu, in your dinky little cap 

And your war worn, faded uniform of blue, 
With your multitude of haversacks abulge from heel to 
flap 
And your rifle that is most as big as you. 
You were made for love and laughter, for good wine 
and merry song, 
Now your sunlit world has sadly gone astray, 
And the road today you travel stretches rough and red 
and long, 
Yet you make it, petit soldat, brave and gay. 

Though you live within the shadow, fagged and hungry 
half the while, 
And your days and nights are racking in the line, 
There is nothing under heaven that can take away your 
smile, 
Oh, so wistful, and so patient and so fine. 
You are tender as a woman with the tiny ones who crowd 

To upraise their lips and for your kisses pout, 
Still, we'd hate to have to face you when the bugle's 
sounding loud 
And your slim, steel sweetheart Rosalie is out. 



96 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

You're devoted to mustaches which you twirl with such 
an air 
O'er a cigarette with nigh an inch to run, 
And quite often you are noticed in a beard that's full of 
hair, 
But that heart of yours is always twenty-one. 
No, you do not "parlee English," and you find it very hard, 
For you want to chum with us and words you lack; 
So you pat us on the shoulder and say, "Nous sommes 
camarades." 
We are that, my poilu pal, to hell and back! 

AUSTRALIA'S MEN 

DOROTHEA MACKELLAR 

Miss Mackellar is the daughter of Sir Charles Mackellar, Chairman 
of the Bank of New South Wales. Acknowledgment is due Dr. George 
Cooke-Adams, formerly an officer in the Australian naval forces, through 
whose courtesy her verses are presented here. 

'T'HERE are some that go for love of a fight 

And some for love of a land, 
And some for a dream of the world set free 
Which they barely understand. 

A dream of the world set free from Hate — 

But splendidly, one and all, 
Danger they drink as 'twere wine of Life 

And jest as they reel and fall. 

Clean aims, rare faculties, strength and youth, 
They have poured them freely forth 

For the sake of the sun-steeped land they left 
And the far green isle in the north. 

What can we do to be worthy of them, 
Now hearts are breaking for pride? 

Give comfort at least to the wounded men 
And the kin of the man that died. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 97 

TANKS 

O. C. A. CHILD 

"VTTS, back at home I used to drive a tram ; 

And Sammy, there, he was a driver, too — 
He used to ride his racer — did Sir Sam ; 
While pokey London streets was all I knew. 

But now, His Nibs and I, of equal rank, 
Are chummy as the paper and the wall, 

Each tooling of a caterpillar tank, 

Each waiting on the blest old bugle call. 

Say! Tanks are sport — when you get used to them, 
They're like a blooming railroad, self-contained ; 

They lay their tracks, as you might say — pro tem, 
And pick 'em up, and there's good distance gained. 

They roar across rough country like a gale, 
They lean against a house and push it down, 

They're like a baby fortress under sail, 
And antic as a three-ring circus clown. 

Sam says they're slow. They may seem so to him — 
They can't show fancy mile-a-minute stuff, 

But when they charge, in armored fighting trim, 
You bet the Germans find 'em fast enough ! 

Now Sam and I are waiting, side by side, 
To steam across yon farm-land in the night ; 

We'll take their blamed barbed wire in our stride, 
And stamp a German trench line out of sight. 



98 THE WAR IN FERSE AND PROSE 

A HYMN OF FREEDOM 

MARY PERRY KING 

in Collier's Weekly 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

TJNFURL the flag of Freedom, 

Fling far the bugle blast ! 
There comes a sound of marching 

From out the mighty past. 
Let every peak and valley 

Take up the valiant cry: 
Where, beautiful as morning, 

Our banner cuts the sky. 

Free born to peace and justice, 

We stand to guard and save 
The liberty of manhood, 

The faith our fathers gave. 
Then soar aloft, Old Glory, 

And tell the waiting breeze 
No law but Right and Mercy 

Shall rule the Seven Seas. 

No hate is in our anger, 

No vengeance in our wrath, 
We hold the line of freedom 

Across the tyrant's path. 
Where'er oppression vaunteth 

We loose the sword once more 
To stay the feet of conquest, 

And pray an end of war. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 99 

SWAN SONGS 

"VfORE than all the others put together, the war poems 
of Alan Seeger, Lieutenant Colonel McCrae, and 
Lieut. Rupert Brooke, have touched and thrilled the 
heart of America. They are quiet, earnest, yet more 
powerful than trumpet blasts, for they rise triumphant 
from great depths, and as they sing, exalt. 

Most familiar is our own Alan Seeger's "I Have a 
Rendezvous with Death." He was studying in Paris 
when the war broke out. In the third week he enlisted 
in the Foreign Legion. Two arduous years later he 
was called on higher service. July 4, 1916, his squad 
was caught in an assault on the village of Belloy-en- 
Santerre, where the Germans received them with the 
fire of six machine guns. Seeger was severely wounded, 
but went forward with the others, and helped take the 
place. Next morning he died. He had kept the tryst. 

Alan Seeger was a New York boy. He was born in 
that city June 22, 1888. In his short life he had written 
some twenty poems. This was his last. It was written 
in camp, shortly before his call came: 

I HAVE A RENDEZVOUS WITH DEATH* 

HAVE a rendezvous with Death 

At some disputed barricade 
When Spring comes back with rustling shade 
And apple blossoms fill the air. 
I have a rendezvous with Death 
When Spring brings back blue days and fair 



•From "Poems," by Alan Seeger. Copyrght, 1916, by Charles Scrib- 
ner's Sons, Publishers, New York. Permission- to reproduce in this book. 



100 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

It may be he shall take my hand 

And lead me into his dark land 

And close my eyes and quench my breath; 

It may be I shall pass him, still, 

I have a rendezvous with Death 

On some scarred slope of battered hill, 

When Spring comes round again this year 

And the first meadow flowers appear. 

God knows 'twere better to be deep 
Pillowed in silk and scented down, 
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep, 
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath, 
Where hushed awakenings are dear. 
But I've a rendezvous with Death 
At midnight in some flaming town, 
When Spring trips north again this year, 
And I to my pledged word am true. 
I shall not fail that rendezvous. 



Lieut. Col. John McCrae was a Canadian physician 
who served in the South African war as an artilleryman. 
He was on his way to Canada when the war began in 
1914, and immediately upon landing he entered the Val 
Cartier training camp and was commissioned a Captain. 
Later he joined the McGill Hospital corps and went with 
it to France, where he rose to the rank of Lieutenant 
Colonel, and died in service, January 28, 1918. 

His poem, "In Flanders' Fields," was written on the 
Flanders front in the Spring of 1915. Its inspiration is 
thus explained by Sergeant Charles E. Bisset, of the 19th 
Battalion, 1st Biigade, Canadian Infantry: 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 101 

"On the Flanders front in the early Spring of 1915, 
when the war had settled down to trench fighting, two 
of the most noticeable features of the field were, first, 
the luxuriant growth of red poppies appearing among 
the graves of the fallen soldiers, and second, that only 
one species of bird — the larks — remained on the field 
during the fighting. As soon as the cannonading ceased, 
they would rise in the air, singing." 



IN FLANDERS FIELDS 

TN Flanders' fields the poppies blow 
Between the crosses, row on row, 
That mark our place, and in the sky 
The larks, still bravely singing, fly 
Scarce heard amid the guns below. 

We are the Dead ! Short days ago 
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, 
Loved and were loved, and now we lie 
In Flanders' fields. 

Take up our quarrel with the foe! 
To you from failing hands we throw 
The Torch. Be yours to hold it high ! 
If ye break faith with us who die 
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow, 
In Flanders' fields. 



Rupert Brooke, a brilliant, impassioned young Eng- 
lishman, was one of the first to take arms when Great 
Britain went to war. He died in the Dardanelles expe- 



102 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

dition, April 23, 1915. A few days before, he had sent 
from the iEgean Sea to the English-speaking peoples the 
poem by which he is best known : 

THE SOLDIER* 

T F I should die, think only this of me : 

That there's some corner of a foreign field 
That is for ever England. There shall be 

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed, 
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, 

Gave once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, 
A body of England's breathing English air, 

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. 
And think, this heart, all evil shed away, 

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less 

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given ; 
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; 

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, 

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. 

Lieutenant Brooke was a rare poet, having a serene 
faith, a knowledge of life as continuous. His bent of 
thought, the manner of his feeling, shine most clearly in 
this sonnet: 

NOT WITH VAIN TEARS 

"M"OT with vain tears, when we're beyond the sun, 
We'll beat on the substantial doors, nor tread 
Those dusty highroads of the aimless dead, 
Plaintive for Earth ; but rather turn and run 
Down some close-covered byway of the air, 



*"The Soldier," and "Not With Vain Tears" are from "The Col- 
lected Poems of Rupert Brooke," published and copyright, 1915, by John 
Lane Company, New York. Special permission to reproduce in this 
book. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 103 

Some low, sweet alley between wind and wind, 

Stoop under faint gleams, thread the shadows, find 
Some whispering, ghost-forgotten nook, and there 
Spend in pure converse our eternal day; 

Think each in each, immediately wise; 
Learn all we lacked before; hear, know and say 

What this tumultuous body now denies; 
And feel, who have laid our groping hands away; 

And see, no longer blinded by our eyes. 

All of Rupert Brooke's work has been collected and 
issued, a rich though slender sheaf. The book is fervently 
commended to people whose own souls are in the key that 
responds to notes so spiritually fine and clear as those 
he sounds in all his lines. 



"But a Short Time to Live" was written by Serg't 
Leslie Coulson, whose "little hour" came to an end at 
Arras, in France, October 7, 1916: 

BUT A SHORT TIME TO LIVE 

{^\UR little hour — how swift it flies — 

When poppies flare and lilies smile; 
How soon the fleeting minute dies, 

Leaving us but a little while 
To dream our dreams, to sing our song, 

To pick the fruit, to pluck the flower. 
The gods — they do not give us long — 

One little hour. 



Our little hour — how soon it dies; 
How short a time to tell our beads, 



1.04 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

— i*_ 

--^^ xo chant our feeble litanies, 

To think sweet thoughts, to do good deeds. 
The altar lights grow pale and dim, 

The bells hang silent in the tower — 
So passes with the dying hymn 
Our little hour. 

These songs, with others that have lilted so bravely, 
so gravely, through the world's most bitter years of tra- 
vail, will live long in literature, with many more as 
strong or as sweet. Had all the writers lived, we would 
have had a wealth of splendid gifts from them, espe- 
cially, maybe, from that "poor bird-hearted singer of 
a day," Francis Ledwidge, who fell in battle in Flan- 
ders, July 31, 1917. Ledwidge was discovered by Lord 
Dunsany, himself a soldier-poet and a patron of poets. 
He was lance corporal in Lord Dunsany's company in 
the 5th Battalion of the Royal Inniskillen Fusileers. 
He wrote quite touchingly to a friend shortly before 
the end, "I mean to do something great if I am spared, 
but out here one may at any moment be hurled out 
of life." There is no doubt he would have done "some- 
thing great," for here is a swan song not unworthy to bear 
his name to later times : 

THE LOST ONES 

COMEWHERE is music from the linnets' bills, 

And through the sunny flowers the bee wings drone, 
And white bells of convolvulus on hills 

Of quiet May make silent ringing blown 
Hither and thither by the wind of showers, 

And somewhere all the wandering birds have flown; 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 105 

And the brown breath of Autumn chills the flowers. 
But where are all the loves of long ago? 

O little twilight ship blown up the tide, 
Where are the faces laughing in the glow 

Of morning years, the lost ones scattered wide? 
Give me your hand, O brother; let us go 

Crying about the dark for those who died. 



THE FLAG SPEAKS 

WALTER E. PECK 
in The Hamilton Literary Magazine 

"D IBBONS of white in the flag of our land, 

Say, shall we live in fear? 
Speak! For I wait for the word from your lips 
Wet with the brine of the sea-going ships; 
Speak! Shall we cringe 'neath an Attila's whips? 
Speak! For I wait to hear! 



"This is our word," said the ribbons of white; 
"This is the course to steer — 
Peace is our haven for foul or for fair — 
Won as a maiden and kept as an heir, 
Peace with the sunlight of God on her hair, 
Peace, with an honor clear!" 

Ribbons of red in the flag of our land, 

Bought for a price full dear, 

Speak! For 'tis Man that is asking Man, 

Churl in the centuries' caravan, 

Speak! For he waits for your bold "I can!" 

Speak! For he waits to hear! 



106 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

"This is our word," said the ribbons of red, 
Slowly, with gaze austere, 
"War if we must in humanity's name, 
Shielding a sister from sorrow and shame; 
War upon beasts with the sword and with flame! 
War — till the Judge appear!" 

Stars in a field of the sky's own blue, 
Light of a midnight year, 
Speak! For the spirit of Man awakes, 
Shoulders the cross, and his couch forsakes, 
Whispers a prayer, and the long way takes, 
Speak! For he waits to hear! 

"This is our word," said a star of white, 

Set in the silken mere, 

"Right against Might on the land, on the sea! 

Little and Great are the same to me! 

Only for Truth and for Liberty 

Strike! For the hour is here!" 



THE CALL 

(France, August 1st, 1914) 

ROBERT W. SERVICE 

From "Rhymes of a Red Cross Man," a book of fine poems by 
Mr. Service. Published and copyright, 1916, by Barse & Hopkins, New 
York. Special permission to insert in this book. 

"CAR and near, high and clear, 
Hark to the call of War! 
Over the gorse and the golden dells, 
Ringing and swinging of clamorous bells, 
Praying and saying of wild farewells: 

War! War! War! 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 167 

High and low, all must go: 

Hark to the shout of War! 
Leave to the women the harvest yield ; 
Gird ye, men, for the sinister field; 
A sabre instead of a scythe to wield. 

War! Red war! 

Rich and poor, lord and boor, 

Hark to the blast of War! 
Tinker and tailor and millionaire, 
Actor in triumph and priest in prayer, 
Comrades now in the hell out there, 

Sweep to the fire of War! 

Prince and page, sot and sage, 

Hark to the roar of War! 
Poet, professor and circus clown, 
Chimney-sweeper and fop o' the town, 
Into the pot and be melted down 

Into the pot of War! 

Women all, hear the call, 

The pitiless call of War! 
Look your last on your dearest ones, 
Brothers and husbands, fathers, sons: 
Swift they go to the ravenous guns, 

The gluttonous guns of War! 

Everywhere thrill the air 

The maniac bells of War! 
There will be little of sleeping tonight; 
There will be wailing and weeping tonight; 
Death's red sickle is reaping tonight: 

War! War! War! 



108 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 



OUR BOYS IN KHAKI 

CHARLOTTE W. THURSTON 
in Munsey's Magazine 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

"T\0 we love our boys in khaki? 

That we do! 
Do we love the beat, beat, beat 
Of their footsteps down the street? 
Do we love the visored cap? 
Do we love the four-pinched hat, 
Belt and button, braid and strap, 
Band and buckle, and all that? 
Yes, we do! 

But the boy behind the khaki, 

Young and brave and straight and slender, 

Our protector, our defender, 

Strong and true; 
Do you know, oh, boy in khaki, 
How our hearts are there with you? 
Do I love that boy in khaki? 

Yes, I do! 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 109 



THE ANXIOUS DEAD 

LIEUT. COL. JOHN McCRAE 
in The London Spectator 

f^\ GUNS, fall silent till the dead men hear 
Above their heads the legions pressing on ! 
(These fought their fight in time of bitter fear 
And died not knowing how the day had gone.) 

O flashing muzzles, pause and let them see 
The coming dawn that streaks the sky afar! 

Then let your mighty chorus witness be 

To them, and Caesar, that we still make war. 

Tell them, O guns, that we have heard their call ; 

That we have sworn and will not turn aside ; 
That we will onward till we win or fall ; 

That we will keep the faith for which they died. 

Bid them be patient, and some day, anon, 

They shall feel earth enwrapt in silence deep — 

Shall greet in wonderment the quiet dawn, 
And in content may turn them to their sleep. 



110 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

HOME 

REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN 
From Mr. Kauffman's book of poems, "Little Old Belgium." 
Henry Altemus Company, Publishers, Philadelphia. Copyright, 1914. 
Reproduced in this book by special permission. 

At a pillaged hamlet near Termonde, I asked a dying 
peasant woman into which of the houses still standing 
I should assist her — which was her home? She pressed 
a withered hand to her bayonet-pierced side and an- 
swered: "The Germans have taken one home from me; 
but, without knowing it, they have given me another. I 
am going there now." 

"Vf Y house that I so soon shall own 

Is builded in a silent place, 
Not uncompanioned or alone, 

But shared by almost all my race; 
No landscape from its windows rolls 

A picture of the earth's increase; 
But, oh, for all our stricken souls, 

Within its sturdy walls is — Peace. 

The other house I used to love 

Before they burnt it overhead; 
My slaughtered man; the memory of 

Our daughter screaming in the red 
Embrace of Uhlans at my door, 

Her shrieks all silenced by their shout 
Of drunken fury — that was war, 

And my new home will shut it out. 

I shall not see the German hands 
That tear the baby from the breast; 

I shall not hear the plundering bands 
Laughing at murder: I shall rest. 

There Joy shall never riot in 
Nor robber sorrow find his way; 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 111 

Those shutters bar the call of Sin, 
And Duty has no debt to pay. 

So much I shall be heedless of, 

Serene, secure, dispassionate; 
There is not anything to love; 

There is not anything to hate. 
So in my house I shall forget 

All of the orgies and the strife, 
And find, past memory and regret, 

The Resurrection and the Life. 



TO HAPPIER DAYS 

MABEL McELLIOTT 
in The Chicago Sunday Tribune 

A GAINST the shabby house I pass each day 
(The town is strange, and all so new to see) 
Pink hollyhocks made friendly sport of me, 
With nod and smile and endless courtesy 
Enlive the lonely sameness of my way. 
Slim little maids in rosy morning frocks, 
They make a splash of color on the gray — 
The sun so bright — a pity not to play, 
But this old world is sadly work-a-day, 
And I must hasten on, my hollyhocks! 

I like to think that somewhere, overseas, 

Perhaps in some neglected garden place, 

Shy flowers from home lean out with wayward grace — 

Blue iris and the valley lilies' lace — 

Reminding them of happier times than these, . . . 

Of happy times that are so soon to be, 

When they come marching home to us — our men — 

The world's work done, the land made clean again! 



112 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

YOUR LAD, AND MY LAD 

RANDALL PARRISH 
in The Chicago Tribune 

FjOWN toward the deep-blue water, marching to throb 

of drum, 
From city street and country lane the lines of khaki come ; 
The rumbling guns, the sturdy tread, are full of grim 

appeal, 
While rays of western sunshine flash back from burnished 

steel. 
With eager eyes and cheeks aflame the serried ranks 

advance ; 
And your dear lad, and my dear lad, are on their way to 

France. 

A sob clings choking in the throat, as file on file sweep by, 
Between those cheering multitudes, to where the great 

ships lie; 
The batteries halt, the columns wheel, to clear-toned 

bugle-call. 
With shoulders squared and faces front they stand a 

khaki wall. 
Tears shine on every watcher's cheek, love speaks in every 

glance ; 
For your dear lad, and my dear lad, are on their way to 

France. 

Before them, through a mist of years, in soldier buff or 

blue, 
Brave comrades from a thousand fields watch now in 

proud review; 
The same old Flag, the same old Faith, — the Freedom 

of the World — 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 113 

Spells Duty in those flapping folds above long ranks un- 
furled. 

Strong are the hearts which bear along Democracy's 
advance, 

As your dear lad, and my dear lad, go on their way to 
France. 

The word rings out ; a million feet tramp forward on the 
road, 

Along that path of sacrifice o'er which their fathers 
strode. 

With eager eyes and cheeks aflame, with cheers on smil- 
ing lips, 

These fighting men of '17 move onward to their ships. 

Nor even love may hold them back, nor halt that stern 
advance, 

As your dear lad, and my dear lad, go on their way to 
France. 



"AS SHE IS SPOKE" 

Boston Transcript 

T'VE heard a half a dozen times 

Folks call it Reims. 
That isn't right, though, so it seems, 

Perhaps it's Reims. 
Poor city ruined now by flames — 

Can it be Reims? — 
That once was one of France's gems — 

More likely Reims. 
I'll get it right sometime, perchance; 

I'm told it's Reims. 



114 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

THE SPIRES OF OXFORD 

(Seen from the Train) 

WINIFRED M. LETTS 

From "The Spires of Oxford and Other Poems," by Winifred M. 
Letts, published and copyright, 1917, by E. P. Dutton & Company, New 
York. Special permission to reproduce in this book. 

T SAW the spires of Oxford 

As I was passing by, 
The gray spires of Oxford 
Against a pearl-gray sky. 
My heart was with the Oxford men 
Who went abroad to die. 

The years go fast in Oxford, 

The golden years and gay, 

The hoary colleges look down 

On careless boys at play. 

But when the bugles sounded — War! 

They put their games away. 

They left the peaceful river, 
The cricket field, the quad, 
The shaven lawns of Oxford 
To seek a bloody sod — 
They gave their merry youth away 
For country and for God. 

God rest you, happy gentlemen, 
Who laid your good lives down, 
Who took the khaki and the gun 
Instead of cap and gown. 
God bring you to a fairer place 
Than even Oxford town. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 115 

THE GENTLEMEN OF OXFORD 

NORAH M. HOLLAND 

IN EVERYWOMAN'S WORLD 

'"PHE sunny streets of Oxford 

Are lying still and bare. 
No sound of voice or laughter 

Rings through the golden air; 
And, chiming from her belfry, 

No longer Christchurch calls 
The eager, boyish faces 

To gather in her halls. 

The colleges are empty. 

Only the sun and wind 
Make merry in the places 

The lads have left behind. 
But, when the trooping shadows 

Have put the day to flight, 
The Gentlemen of Oxford 

Come homing through the night. 

From France they come, and Flanders, 

From Mons, and Marne and Aisne, 
From Greece and from Gallipoli 

They come to her again; 
From the North Sea's grey waters, 

From many a grave unknown, 
The Gentlemen of Oxford 

Come back to claim their own. 

The dark is full of laughter, 

Boy laughter, glad and young. 
They tell the old-time stories, 

The old-time songs are sung; 



116 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

They linger in her cloisters, 
They throng her dewy meads, 

Till Isis hears their calling 
And laughs among her reeds. 

But, when the east is whitening 

To greet the rising sun, 
And slowly, over Carfax, 

The stars fade, one by one, 
Then, when the dawn-wind whispers 

Along the Isis shore, 
The Gentlemen of Oxford 

Must seek their graves once more. 

WITH THE SAME PRIDE 

THEODOSIA GARRISON 

in Everybody's Magazine 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

C^NE star for all she had, 

And in her heart 
One wound — yet is she glad 

For all its smart 
As they are glad who bear 

The pangs of birth 
That a new soul and fair 

May come to earth, 
Seeing she, too, was one 

Who from Death's strife 
Granted her first-born son 

Proudly to Life. 
Now with that very faith 

Life justified, 
She grants a son to Death 

With the same pride. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 117 

ACELDAMA 

DR. GEORGE F. BUTLER 
in The Scoop, the Chicago Press Club's Magazine 

CTILL breaks the Holy morn, to soothe the care 
And labor of the world; hushed is the grove, 
And overhead the vireo's note of love 

Floats like a joyful utterance of prayer. 

Soft insect murmurs fill the enchanted air. 
Into a fairer day earth seems to move, 
And statelier thoughts lift mortal sense above 

Life's sin and pain; the sorrow and despair. 

But hark! where now the noonday beams are shed 
In sorrowing Europe, trembles a sound 
Of thunder, and the land with dews of blood 

Is drenched ; while o'er the dying and the dead 

Fate turns to weep o'er every pleading wound — 
Can earth o'ercome the evil with the good? 

But yesterday two monarchs, held in check 

Like bloodhounds in the leash, broke forth before 
The eyes of Christendom, and in the roar 
Of lurid conflict heard not the wild shriek 
Of outraged millions — now again the wreck 
Of crushed humanity must strew death's shore 
With ghastly ruin crying evermore, 
"Shame! Wretch of mortal form and vulture's beak — 
To ask God's aid and Christ's! O, hour of woe! 
Cover, O night of ages, the dread birth 
Of man's Imperial hate! Let kings go down 
That peoples may aspire and live and own 
A holier stature, and this crimsoned earth 
Drink the pure light of Freedom's afterglow!" 

Sunday in August, 1914 



118 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

THE LONELY GARDEN 

EDGAR A. GUEST 

Copyright, 1918, by Edgar A. Guest. Special permission to repro- 
duce in this book. 

T WONDER what the trees will say, 

The trees that used to share his play, 
An' knew him as the little lad 
Who used to wander with his dad. 
They've watched him grow from year to year 
Since first the good Lord sent him here; 
This shag-bark hick'ry, many a time, 
The little fellow tried t' climb; 
An' never a spring has come but he 
Has called upon his favorite tree. 
I wonder what they all will say 
When they are told he's marched away. 

I wonder what the birds will say, 
The swallow an' the chatterin' jay, 
The robin an' the kildeer, too. 
For every one o' them he knew, 
An' every one o' them knew him, 
Waited each spring t' tell him all 
They'd done and seen since 'way last fall. 
He was the first to greet 'em here 
An' hoppin' there from limb t' limb, 
As they returned from year t' year; 
An' now I wonder what they'll say 
When they are told he's marched away. 

I wonder how the roses there 
Will get along without his care, 
An' how the lilac bush will face 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 119 

The loneliness about th' place, 
For ev'ry spring an' summer he 
Has been the chum o' plant an' tree, 
An' every livin' thing has known 
A comradeship that's finer grown 
By havin' him from year t' year. 
Now very soon they'll all be here, 
An' I'm wonderin' what they'll say 
When they find out he's marched away. 



THE BRITISH ARMY OF 1914 

ALFRED W. POLLARD 

in Westminster Gazette 

f ET us praise God for the Dead: the Dead who died 

in our cause. 
They went forth a little army : all its men were as true as 

steel. 
The hordes of the enemy were hurled against them : they 

fell back, but their hearts failed not. 
They went forward again and held their ground: though 

their foes were as five to one. 
They gave time for our host to muster: the most of the 

men who never thought to fight. 
A great host and a mighty: worthy of the men who died 

to gain them time. 
Let us praise God for these men: let us remember them 

before Him all our days. 
Let us care for the widows and orphans : and for the men 

who came home maimed. 
Truly God has been with us : these things were not done 

without His help. 
O Lord our God, be Thou still our helper: make us 

worthy of those who died. 



120 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

MORITURI TE SALUTANT 

P. H. B. L. 

in The London Spectator 

TN this last hour, before the bugles blare 

The summons of the dawn, we turn again 
To you, dear country, you whom unaware, 
Through summer years of idle selfishness, 
We still have loved — who loved us none the less, 
Knowing the destined hour would find us men. 

O thrill and laughter of the busy town! 

O flower valleys, trees against the skies, 

Wild moor and woodland, glade and sweeping down, 

O land of our desire! like men asleep 

We have let pass the years, nor felt you creep 

So close into our hearts' dear sanctities. 

So, we are dreamers; but our dreams are cast 
Henceforward in a more heroic mold; 
We have kept faith with our immortal past. 
Knights — we have found the lady of our love; 
Minstrels — have heard great harmonies above 
The lyrics that enraptured us of old. 

The dawn's aglow with luster of the sun 
O love, O burning passion, that has made 
Our day illustrious till its hours are done — 
Fire our dull hearts, that, in our sun's eclipse, 
When Death stoops low to kiss us on the lips, 
He still may find us singing, unafraid. 

One thing we know, that love so greatly spent 
Dies not when lovers die: From hand to hand 
We pass the torch and perish — well content, 
If in dark years to come our countrymen 
Feel the divine flame leap in them again, 
And so remember us and understand. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 121 

"BLIGHTY" AND "GONE WEST" 

"D RITISH soldiers in France have developed a terminol- 
ogy that is plain to them, but confusing to civilians. 
They speak of "Blighty," for example, and of "Gone 
West." These two terms express hopes — Blighty meaning 
home ; in common acceptance, home for rest and recupera- 
tion. "Gone West" means gone from the east with its 
conflict to the refuge of death, where peace waits in the 
glory of sunset. 

"Blighty" is of Hindu origin. British officers in South 
Africa who had served in India used the word, which 
is an Anglicized form of the Indian word "vilayti," 
meaning European. Englishmen being about the only 
Europeans the natives knew, its application narrowed 
down to England only; and the army fell into a way 
of using it as a synonym of home. When the troops 
from India came into action early in the war, their 
wounded were sent to the nearest English great hospital, 
at Brighton, just across the channel. The consonance of 
Brighton and vilayti or Blighty was so close that these 
men used their own word as a matter of course, and in 
this way it floated into general use. 

It has acquired a new sense of late. Casualties inter- 
mediate to those too severe for removal and those that 
can be treated in field hospitals, are sent to England — 
to Blighty — and are themselves called Blighty, meaning 
wounds that get a man home. Lieut. Siegfried Sassoon 
has woven the idea into a plaintively whimsical bit of 
verse which he calls 

BLIGHTY 

T-T E woke : the clank and racket of the train 

Kept time with angry throbbings in his brain, 
At last he lifted his bewildered eyes 
And blinked, and rolled them sidelong; hills and skies. 



122 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

Heavily wooded, hot with August haze, 
And, slipping backward, golden for his gaze, 
Acres of harvest. 

Feebly now he drags 

Exhausted ego back from glooms and quags 
And blasting tumult, terror, hurtling glare, 
To calm and brightness, havens of sweet air. 

He sighed, confused ; then drew a cautious breath ; 
This level journeying was no ride through death. 
"If I were dead," he mused, "there'd be no thinking- 
Only some plunging underworld of sinking, 
And hueless, shifting welter where I'd drown." 
Then he remembered that his name was Brown. 

But was he back in Blighty? Slow he turned, 
Till in his heart thanksgiving leaped and burned. 
There shone the blue serene, the prosperous land, 
Trees, cows and hedges; skipping these he scanned, 
Large, friendly names that change not with the year, 
Lung Tonic, Mustard, Liver Pills and Beer. 



Hugh Pendexter, in Adventure Magazine, says "going 
west," as used by the men overseas to mean death, is of 
peculiarly American origin. The Karok Indians of 
California believed the spirit of the good Karok went 
to the "happy western land." The Cherokee myths 
picture the west as the "ghost country," the twilight land 
where go the dead. The Shawnee tell of the boy who 
"traveled west" to find his sister in the spirit land. The 
Chippewa believes the spirit "followed a wide, beaten path 
toward the west." The spirit world of the Fox Indians 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 123 

is at the setting of the sun. And so on, in the theology 
of many Indian nations we find the West as the storied 
abode of the great majority — who have passed over. 

Its later significance is tenderly sung by Eleanor 
Jewett in The Chicago Tribune: 

GOING WEST 

TW"EST to the hills, the long, long trail that strikes 

Straight and away into the sunset's glow, 
Ribbed by the narrow barriers of Death — 
Dark are the waters that beside it flow. 
The red flowers fade upon the fields of France, 
The soaring larks are fallen to their nest. 
The glare of battle soothes a little space. . . . 
As they go west. . . . 



124 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

ON HIS OWN 

ADOLPHE E. SMYLIE 

of The Vigilantes 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

** "VTOU see that young kid lying there 
Playing a game of solitaire? 
All shot to pieces in the air; 
By Heck, Sarge, he's a wonder. 
The gamest kid I ever met; 
They're probing him for bullets yet, 
But s — sh; here comes his nurse Yvette — 
Kept him from going under. 

You think she's passing by him? Nit! 
D'you get that smile ? He waves his mitt ; 
I think he's stuck on her a bit. 
Can't blame him for that matter. 
She watches him just like a hawk. 
Now listen to their daily talk. 
She's all Paree, he's all New York; 
Sit quiet, hear their chatter." 

"Pardonnez-moi, desirez-vous " 



"Oh, fine and dandy! How are you?" 
"Quelque chose? Comprenez-vous ? — 
"Ah, now I know you're kiddin'." 
"Vous avez bonne mine aujourd'hui — 
"It's high time you were nice to me." 

"Time? Je comprends, il est midi 

"Bright eyes, I think I'm skiddin'." 

"Je crois que je vous donnerai " 

I'll back up anything you say " 

"Un petit morceau de poulet " 

"You fascinating creature!" 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 125 

"Avec le creme, dans la coquille, " 

"Rats! There she goes! I always feel 
Some blessy's S. O. S. appeal 
Will call off my French teacher." 

The Sarge here nudged my splintered ribs; 
"Well, I'll be damned! Here comes His Nibs!" 
And down the aisle stalked General Gibbs 
With all the famous aces. 
They formed around the sick boy's bed, 
He gasped, saluted, then turned red: 
"Looks like I'm pinched!" was all he said, 
Scanning their smiling faces. 

"So," spoke the General, "y° u alone 
Brought down three Taubes on your own! 
Another Yankee Ace is known 
To everyone in Blighty. 
I'm proud to know you, — put it there, — 
And now we're going to let you wear 
This gallantly won Croix de Guerre 
I'm pinning on your nighty." 

THEY SHALL NOT PASS 

ALISON BROWN 

of The Vigilantes 
Permission to reproduce in this book 

'"THEY shall not pass, 

While Britain's sons draw breath, 

While strength is theirs to strike with shining sword. 
They shall not pass, 
Except they pass to Death — 

For British fighting men have pledged their word. 

They shall not pass — 

For France knows no defeat, 

Nor hesitates to nobly pay the price. 



126 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

They shall not pass 

Till brave hearts cease to beat, 

And none shall stand to fall in sacrifice. 

They shall not pass — 
America will stand 

As long as lips can answer her, "I come." 
They shall not pass, 
To strike the loved land, 

That freedom's children rise to call their home. 



SHIPS THAT SAIL IN THE NIGHT 
dysart Mcmullen 

in Munsey's Magazine 
Permission to reproduce in this book 

"Not a light visible. Not a man above the deck." — From a cor- 
respondent's description. 

TJAIL and farewell, 

Ships that pass to the sea! 
Hail and a long farewell, 
Soldiers of destiny! 

Not with rolling of drums, 

Not with music and songs, 
Not with laughter and weeping, 

Or cheering of passionate throngs; 

But silently, as is fitting, 

Gray ghosts passing from sight; 

Great ships like sea-gulls flitting 
Against the curtain of night. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 127 

LET US HAVE PEACE 

CHARLES EUGENE BANKS 
of the Post-Intelligencer, Seattle 

The author of this poem is a newspaper man, known widely for 
his unusual mixture of abilities as a descriptive writer, a critic of 
drama, and a poet. He is a dominant figure in journalism on the 
Pacific coast. 

[" ET us have peace. No craven's peace, 
Nor sluggard's to gape and dream ; 
But the strenuous peace of the land's increase, 

And the powerful beat of steam. 
Let the cannon of commerce roar over the fields, 

And the bugles of brotherhood play ; — 
For the arm of the man, and the brain of the man, 
And the grit of the man, make way. 

Let us have peace. No timid peace, 

That doubtful clings to its place, 
But the free brave peace of the old-time Greece, 

And the faith of a patriot race. 
Let the vision of Virtue enrapture the gaze, 

And the bolts of Integrity stay ; — 
For the arm of the man, and the brain of the man, 

And the nerve of the man, make way. 

Let us have peace. No anchored peace, 

That holds its sails in the slips, 
But the peace that sweeps all the strange blue deeps 

With the keels of its own great ships. 
With Honor commanding, and Truth at the helm, 

And Beauty to welcome the spray ; — 
For the nerve and muscle and brawn and brain, 

For the soul of the Man, make way. 



128 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

KNITTING SOCKS 

The Boston Transcript reprints the following poem, just as it ap- 
peared in that paper November 27, 1861. 

/^LICK, click! how the needles go 

Through the busy fingers, to and fro — 
With no bright colors of berlin wool, 
Delicate hands today are full: 
Only a yarn of deep, dull blue, 
Socks for the feet of the brave and true. 
Yet click, click, how the needles go, 
'Tis a power within that nerves them so. 
In the sunny hours of the bright spring- day, 
And still in the night time far away. 
Maiden, mother, grandame sit 
Earnest and thoughtful while they knit. 
Many the silent prayers they pray, 
Many the tear drops brushed away. 
While busy on the needles go, 
Widen and narrow, heel and toe. 
The grandame thinks with a thrill of pride 
How her mother knit and spun beside 
For that patriot band in olden days 
Who died the Stars and Stripes to raise — 
Now she in turn knits for the brave 
Who'd die that glorious flag to save. 
She is glad, she says, "the boys" have gone, 
'Tis just as their grandfathers would have done. 
But she heaves a sigh and the tears will start, 
For "the boys" were the pride of grandame's heart. 
The mother's look is calm and high, 
God only hears her soul's deep cry — 
In Freedom's name, at Freedom's call, 
She gave her sons — in them her all. 
The maiden's cheek wears a paler shade, 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 129 

But the light in her eyes is undismayed. 
Faith and hope give strength to her sight, 
She sees a red dawn after the night. 
Oh, soldiers brave, will it brighten the day, 
And shorten the march on the weary way, 
To know that at home the loving and true 
Are knitting and hoping and praying for you? 
Soft are the voices when speaking your name, 
Proud are their glories when hearing your fame. 
And the gladdest hour in their lives will be 
When they greet you after the victory. 



THE GOLDENROD 

"ANCHUSA" 
From B. L. T.'s column in The Chicago Tribune 

COME day the fields of Flanders shall bloom in peace 

again, 
Field lilies and the clover spread where once was crimson 

stain, 
And a new, cheerful golden spray shine through the sun 

and rain. 

The clover's for the English who sleep beneath that sod, 
The lily's for the noble French whose spirits rest with 

God, 
But where our sacred dead shall sleep must bloom the 

goldenrod. 

For every flower of summer those meadows will have 
room, 

And yet I think no Flemish hand will touch the kaiser- 
bloom, 

Whose growing blue must evermore whisper of grief and 
doom. 



130 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

But clover for the English shall blossom from the sod, 
And glorious lilies for the French whose spirits rest with 

God. 
And where our own lads lie asleep the prairie goldenrod. 

Once more the Flemish children shall laugh through 

Flemish lanes, 
And gather happy garlands through fields of bygone 

pains, 
And, as they run and cull their flowers, sing in their 

simple strains: 

"These clovers are for English who fought to save this 

sod, 
These lilies for the valiant French — may their souls rest 

in God! 
And for the brave Americans we pluck this goldenrod." 

MAGPIES IN PICARDY 

"TIPCUCA" 
in The Westminster Gazette 

'"THE magpies in Picardy 

Are more than I can tell. 
They flicker down the dusty roads 

And cast a magic spell 
On the men who march through Picardy, 

Through Picardy to hell. 

(The blackbird flies with panic, 

The swallow goes like light, 
The finches move like ladies, 

The owl floats by at night; 
But the great and flashing magpie 

He flies as artists might.) 



THE WAR IN FERS E AND PROSE 131 

A magpie in Picardy 

Told me secret things — 
Of the music in white feathers, 

And the sunlight that sings 
And dances in deep shadows — 

He told me with his wings. 

(The hawk is cruel and rigid, 

He watches from a height; 
The rook is slow and somber, 

The robin loves to fight; 
But the great and flashing magpie 

He flies as lovers might.) 

He told me that in Picardy, 

An age ago or more, 
While all his fathers still were eggs, 

These dusty highways bore 
Brown, singing soldiers marching out 

Through Picardy to war. 

He said that still through chaos 

Works on the ancient plan, 
And that two things have altered not 

Since first the world began — 
The beauty of the wild green earth 

And the bravery of man. 

(For the sparrow flies unthinking 

And quarrels in his flight. 
The heron trails his legs behind, 

The lark goes out of sight; 
But the great and flashing magpie 

He flies as poets might.) 



132 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 



SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE, 1918 

ALMON HENSLEY 
in Everybody's Magazine 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

f" EAVE me alone here, proudly, with my dead, 

Ye mothers of brave sons adventurous ; 
He who once prayed: "If it be possible 

Let this cup pass," will arbitrate for us. 
Your boy with iron nerves and careless smile 

Marched gaily by and dreamed of glory's goal; 
Mine had blanched cheek, straight mouth and close- 
gripped hands 

And prayed that somehow he might save his soul. 
I do not grudge your ribbon or your cross, 

The price of these my soldier, too, has paid ; 
I hug a prouder knowledge to my heart, 

The mother of the boy who was afraid! 

He was a tender child with nerves so keen 

They doubled pain and magnified the sad; 
He hated cruelty and things obscene 

And in all high and holy things was glad. 
And so he gave what others could not give, 

The one supremest sacrifice he made, 
A thing your brave boy could not understand; 

He gave his all because he was afraid! 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 133 

AFTERWARD 

CHARLES HANSON TOWNE 
in The New York Tribune 

'"PHE sick man said : "I pray I shall not die" 

Before this tumult which now rocks the earth 
Shall cease. I dread far journeyings to God 
Ere I have heard the final shots of war, 
And learned the outcome of this holocaust." 

Yet one night, while the guns still roared and flashed, 
His spirit left his body; left the earth. 
Which he had loved in sad, disastrous days, 
And sped to heav'n amid the glittering stars 
And the white splendor of the quiet moon. 

One instant — and a hundred years rushed by! 
And he, a new immortal, found his way 
Among the great celestial hills of God. 
Then suddenly one memory of earth 
Flashed like a meteor's flame across his mind. 

One instant — and another hundred years ! 
And even the dream of that poor little place 
Which he had known was lost in greater spheres 
Through which he whirled; and old remembrances 
Were but as flecks of dust blown down the night; 
And nothing mattered, save that suns and moons 
Swung in the ether for unnumbered worlds 
High, high above the pebble of the earth. 



134 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

THE SONG OF THE GUNS 

HERBERT KAUFMAN 

From Mr. Kaufman's book of poems, "The Hell Gate of Soissons." 
T. Fisher Unwin, Publishers (all rights reserved), London, England. 
Special permission to reproduce in this book. 

XJEAR the guns, hear the guns! 

High above the splutter-sputter 
Of the Maxim, and the stutter 
Of the rifles, hear them shrieking. 
See the searching shells come sneaking, 
Softly speaking, 
Slyly seeking, 

Thirsting, bursting, shrapnel-leaking 
Where the ranks are thickest — tearing 
Mighty gaps among the daring. 
Charging horse and rider stumble, 
And brigades fall in a jumble; 
Earthworks crumble, 
Standards tumble, 
And the driving bayonets fumble, 
But unsated, 
Still the hated 
Cannon thunder, unabated. 
Hear them rumble, 
Hear them grumble, 
Hear the old song of the guns! 
"Send your sons, 
Send your sons, 
All your near ones, 
All your dear ones; 
Give us food! 
Give us food! 

Give the strongest of your brood. 
Let us feed! 
Let us feed! 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 135 

On the bravest that you breed. 

Give us meat, 

Give us meat, 

Oh, the blood of Valor's sweet!" 

And the women make reply: 

Ah, the glory of the lie — 

"Look, no tear is in our eye. 

Rather would we see you die 

For your country, than stand by. 

Rather would we boast to tell 

To your children that you fell, 

Than to have you lurk and sell 

Honor for a coward's breath; 

Better far the soldier's death. 

Go and battle for the land. 

Make a stand! 

Make a stand! 

Go and join the dauntless band. 

Take a hand! 

Take a hand! 

Count not us — God will provide!" 

Thus the women in their pride 

Mask their hearts — their anguish hide. 

Thus the mother and the bride 

Bid their men to march and ride 

To the guns, 

Hungry guns, 

Rumbling, grumbling for their sons. 

Thus the women ever give, 

Give their nearest, dearest ones 

At the summons of the guns. 

What is war to men — they die. 

But the widowed women, aye, 

To the end alone, must live. 



136 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

TELLING THE BEES 

(An old Gloucestershire superstition) 

G. E. R. 

in The Westminster Gazette 

'T'HEY dug no grave for our soldier lad, who fought 

and who died out there: 
Bugle and drum for him were dumb, and the padre said 

no prayer; 
The passing bell gave never a peal to warn that a soul 

was fled, 
And we laid him not in the quiet spot where cluster his 

kin that are dead. 

But I hear a foot on the pathway, above the low hum of 

the hive, 
That at edge of dark, with the song of the lark, tells 

that the world is alive : 
The master starts on his errand, his tread is heavy and 

slow, 
Yet he cannot choose but tell the news — the bees have 

a right to know. 

Bound by the ties of a happier day, they are one with us 

now in our worst ; 
On the very morn that my boy was born they were told 

the tidings the first: 
With what pride they will hear of the end he made, and 

the ordeal that he trod — 
Of the scream of shell, and the venom of hell, and the 

flame of the sword of God. 

Wise little heralds, tell of my boy ; in your golden tabard 
coats 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 137 

Tell the bank where he slept, and the stream he leapt, 

where the spangled lily floats: 
The tree he climbed shall lift her head, and the torrent 

he swam shall thrill, 
And the tempest that bore his shouts before shall cry his 

message still. 



THE RETINUE 

KATHARINE LEE BATES 
in The Atlantic Monthly 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

A RCHDUKE FRANCIS FERDINAND, Austrian 

heir-apparent, 
Rideth through the Shadow Land, not a lone knight 

errant, 
But captain of a mighty train, millions upon millions, 
Armies of the battle slain, hordes of dim civilians; 



German ghosts who see their works with tortured eyes, 

the sorry 
Spectres of sacred tyrants, Turks hunted by their quarry, 
Liars, plotters red of hand — like waves of poisonous 

gases, 
Sweeping through the Shadow Land the host of horror 

passes ; 

Spirits bright as broken blades drawn for truth and honor, 
Sons of Belgium, pallid maids, martyrs who have won her 
Love eternal, bleeding breasts of the French defiance, 
Russians on enraptured quests, Freedom's proud alliance. 



138 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

Through that hollow hush of doom, vast, unvisioned 

regions, 
Led by Kitchener of Khartum, march the English 

legions : 
Kilt and shamrock, maple leaf, dreaming Hindu faces, 
Brows of glory, eyes of grief, arms of lost embraces. 

Like a moaning tide of woe, midst those pale battalions 
From the Danube and the Po, Arabs and Australians, 
Pours a ghastly multitude that breaks the heart of pity, 
Wreckage of some shell-bestrewed waste that was a city; 
Flocking from the murderous seas, from the famished 

lowland, 
From the blazing villages of Serbia and Poland, 
Woman phantoms, baby wraiths, trampled by war's blind- 
ness, 
Horses, dogs, that put their faiths in human loving kind- 
ness. 

Tamburlane, Napoleon, envious Alexander 
Peer in wonder at the wan, tragical commander, 
Archduke Francis Ferdinand — when shall his train be 

ended? — 
Of all the lords of Shadow Land most royally attended! 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 139 

VIVE LA FRANCE! 

CHARLOTTE HOLMES CRAWFORD 
By permission: From Scribner's Magazine, copyright, 1916, by 
Charles Scribner's Sons. 

"C RAN CELINE rose in the dawning gray, 

And her heart would dance though she knelt to pray, 
For her man Michel had holiday, 
Fighting for France. 

She offered her prayer by the cradle-side, 
And with baby palms folded in hers she cried: 
"If I have but one prayer, dear, crucified 
Christ — save France! 

"But if I have two, then, by Mary's grace, 
Carry me safe to the meeting place, 
Let me look once again on my dear love's face, 
Save him for France!" 

She crooned to her boy: "Oh, how glad he'll be, 
Little three-months old, to set eyes on thee! 
For 'Rather than gold, would I give,' wrote he, 
'A son to France.' 

"Come, now, be good, little stray sauterelle, 
For we're going by-by to thy papa Michel, 
But I'll not say where for fear thou wilt tell, 
Little pigeon of France! 

"Six days' leave and a year between! 
But what would you have? In six days clean, 
Heaven was made," said Franceline, 
"Heaven and France." 



140 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

She came to the town of the nameless name, 
To the marching troops in the street she came, 
And she held high her boy like a taper flame 
Burning for France. 

Fresh from the trenches and gray with grime, 
Silent they march like a pantomime; 
"But what need of music? My heart beats time — 
Vive la France!" 

His regiment comes. Oh, then where is he? 
"There is dust in my eyes, for I cannot see, — 
Is that my Michel to the right of thee, 
Soldier of France?" 

Then out of the ranks a comrade fell — 
"Yesterday — 'twas a splinter of shell — 
And he whispered thy name, did poor Michel, 
Dying for France." 

The tread of the troops on the pavement throbbed 
Like a woman's heart of its last joy robbed, 
As she lifted her boy to the flag, and sobbed 
"Vive la France!" 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 141 

THE WOES OF A ROOKIE 

WILLIAM L. COLESTOCK 

]' ENLISTED in the infantry last summer; 

I was greeted at the training camp with joy; 
I had hardly gotten settled, when a sergeant 

Told me I was now the Company's errand boy. 
Now, I knew I'd have to start in at the bottom, 

And acquire my army training bit by bit; 
But to be assigned to duties quite so humble, 

Was humiliating, surely you'll admit. 

My first errand was a trip to Field Headquarters. 

It was raining and the mud was deep and thick. 
I was ordered to seek out the Major General, 

And procure a requisition for a brick. 
'Twas explained to me, before I left my Company, 

That our Captain suffered much with chilly feet, 
And that bricks, when rightly heated, would correct this. 

What that Major General said, I'll not repeat. 

To our surly Regimental Quartermaster, 

I was sent to get the Company's Sunday hats, 
And my Sergeant said, "to save myself some walking," 

I could "also get the First Lieutenant's spats"; 
When I told that sour Quartermaster's seageant 

What it was I'd like to have for Company A, 
Gosh, he "bawled me out," said "Your ears should be 
longer, 

And your rations should be changed from beans to 
hay." 

For a thousand feet of skirmish line I hunted 
For a half a day, before I saw the joke ; 



142 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

Next they sent me for a left-hand canvas stretcher, 
To repair the Mess-hall windows, which were broke. 

As the Company Street was slightly rough and bumpy, 
They dispatched me for a double-jointed plow; 

And one breakfast-time they sent me to the Colonel, 
With a pail, to milk the Regimental cow. 

Then one day the Sergeant said, "You've been promoted. 

You're now morning call-boy for the Regiment, 
And each morning, bright and early, you will sprinkle 

Drops of water on each face, in every tent." 
In the morning I began my sprinkling duties, 

And had sprinkled in about one dozen tents, 
When a bunch of fellows rushed me to the hydrant, 

Where they "soused" me good; since then I've had 
some sense. 

As I look back at the time I "ran the paddles," 

After having set me down in water wet ; 
Rushing down between two rows of husky messmates, 

With my arms above my head, I feel it yet. 
Now, I've graduated from the rookie section, 

And the "awkward squad" will miss me in its ranks, 
And I'm happy, for a bunch of bloomin' rookies 

Have arrived. To those that sent them, Many Thanks. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 143 

IN THE FRONT-LINE DESKS 

LIEUT. ELMER FRANKLIN POWELL 

in Adventure Magazine 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

TRIED to be a doughboy, but they said my feet 
were flat 

And I'd surely never stand the awful strain. 
No chance to even argue that I'd like to bet my hat 

I could out walk any tar-heel in the train. 
"Awful sorry, but it's useless," was the doctor's mournful 
wail. 

"Your eyesight quite unfits you for the guns." 
Uselessly I tried to tell him that at dropping leaden hail 

I could surely decimate a pack of Huns. 

Then I hoped for aviation, for my nerve is still in place, 
But there wasn't even half a chance for that. 

A stocky young lieutenant said, "You'll never hold the 
pace, 
For you've got a jumpy eyebrow." Think o' that! 

So they went and made me captain in the Quartermaster 
Corps, 
Where I juggle lists of beans the livelong day. 
Trying hard to grin and bear it as the boys march off 
to war 
While I sit and figure up their blasted pay. 



144 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN WALKS AT MIDNIGHT 

(In Springfield, Illinois) 

VACHEL LINDSAY 

From Vachel Lindsay's book entitled "The Congo and Other Poems," 
published and copyright, 1914, by The Macmillan Company, New York. 
Special permission to insert in this book. 

TT is portentous, and a thing of state, 
"*• That here at midnight, in our little town 
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest, 
Near the old court house pacing up and down. 

Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards 
He lingers where his children used to play, 
Or through the market, on the well-worn stones 
He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away. 

A bronzed, lank man ! His suit of ancient black, 
A famous high-top hat and plain worn shawl 
Make him the quaint great figure that men love, 
The prairie lawyer, master of us all. 

He cannot sleep upon his hillside now. 
He is among us; — as in times before! 
And we who toss and lie awake for long 
Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door. 

His head is bowed. He thinks on men and kings. 
Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep? 
Too many peasants fight, they know not why, 
Too many homesteads in black terror weep. 

The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart. 
He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main. 
He carries on his shawl-wrapped shoulders now 
The bitterness, the folly and the pain. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 145 

He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn 
Shall come; — the shining hope of Europe free; 
The League of sober folk, the Workers' Earth 
Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea. 

It breaks his heart that kings must murder still, 
That all his hours of travail here for men 
Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace 
That he may sleep upon his hill again? 



THE KINGS 

HUGH J. HUGHES 
in Farm, Stock and Home 

'T'HE Kings are dying! In blood and flame 

Their sun is setting to rise no more ! 

They have played too long at the ancient game 

Of their bluer blood and the bolted door. 

Now the blood of their betters is on their hands — 
The blood of the peasant, the child, the maid ; 

And there are no waters in all the lands 
Can bathe them clean of the dark stain laid. 

They have sinned in malice and craven fear — 
For the sake of their tinsel have led us on 

To the hate-built trench and the death-drop sheer, 
But the day will come when the Kings are gone. 

The Kings are dying! Beat, O drums, 
The world-wide roll of the democrat! 

O bugles, cry out for the day that comes 

When the Kings that were shall be marveled at ! 



146 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

JEAN DESPREZ 

ROBERT W. SERVICE 

From "Rhymes of a Red Cross Man," by Robert W. Service, 
published and copyright, 1916, by Barse & Hopkins, New York. Special 
permission to reproduce in this book. 

/^NH ye whose hearts are resonant, and ring to War's 

^^^ romance, 

Hear ye the story of a boy, a peasant boy of France ; 

A lad uncouth and warped with toil, yet who, when trial 

came, 
Could feel within his soul upleap and soar, the sacred 

flame; 
Could stand upright, and scorn and smite, as only heroes 

may: 
Oh, harken! Let me try to tell the tale of Jean Desprez. 

With fire and sword the Teuton horde was ravaging the 

land, 
And there was darkness and despair, grim death on every 

hand; 
Red fields of slaughter sloping down to ruin's black 

abyss ; 
The wolves of war ran evil-fanged, and little did they 

miss. 
And on they came with fear and flame, to burn and loot 

and slay, 
Until they reached the red-roofed croft, the home of Jean 

Desprez. 

"Rout out of the village, one and all!" the Uhlan Cap- 
tain said. 

"Behold ! Some hand has fired a shot. My trumpeter is 
dead. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 147 

Now shall they Prussian vengeance know ; now shall they 

rue the day, 
For by this sacred German slain, ten of these dogs shall 
. pay." 

They drove the cowering peasants forth, women and 
babes and men, 

And from the last, with many a jeer, the Captain chose 
he ten; 

Ten simple peasants, bowed with toil; they stood, they 
knew not why 

Against the grey wall of the church, hearing their chil- 
dren cry; 

Hearing their wives and mothers wail, with faces dazed 
they stood. 

A moment only. . . . Ready! Fire! They weltered in 
their blood. 

But there was one who gazed unseen, who heard the 

frenzied cries, 
Who saw these men in sabots fall before their children's 

eyes ; 
A Zouave wounded in a ditch, and knowing death was 

nigh, 
He laughed with joy: "Ah! here is where I settle ere 

I die." 
He clutched his rifle once again, and long he aimed and 

well. . . . 
A shot! Beside his victims ten the Uhlan Captain fell. 

They dragged the wounded Zouave out; their rage was 

like a flame. 
With bayonets they pinned him down, until their Major 

came. 
A blond, full-blooded man he was, and arrogant of eye. 



148 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

He stared to see with shattered skull his favorite Captain 
lie. 

"Nay, do not finish him so quick, this foreign swine," he 
cried ; 

"Go nail him to the big church door: he shall be cruci- 
fied." 

With bayonets through hands and feet they nailed the 

Zouave there, 
And there was anguish in his eyes, and horror in his stare ; 
"Water! A single drop!" he moaned; but how they 

jeered at him, 
And mocked him with an empty cup, and saw his sight 

grow dim; 
And as in agony of death with blood his lips were wet, 
The Prussian Major gaily laughed, and lit a cigarette. 

But 'mid the white-faced villagers who cowered in hor- 
ror by, 

Was one who saw the woeful sight, who heard the woe- 
ful cry: 

"Water! One little drop, I beg! For love of Christ who 
died. ..." 

It was the little Jean Desprez who turned and stole 
aside ; 

It was the little barefoot boy who came with cup abrim 

And walked up to the dying man, and gave the drink 
to him. 

A roar of rage! They seize the boy; they tear him fast 

away. 
The Prussian Major swings around ; no longer is he gay. 
His teeth are wolfishly agleam; his face all dark with 

spite : 
"Go, shoot the brat," he snarls, "that dare defy our Prus- 
sian might. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 149 

Yet stay! I have another thought. I'll kindly be, and 

spare. 
Quick! give the lad a rifle charged, and set him squarely 

there, 
And bid him shoot, and shoot to kill. Haste! Make him 

understand 
The dying dog he fain would save shall perish by his 

hand. 
And all his kindred they shall see, and all shall curse 

his name, 
Who bought his life at such a cost, the price of death 

and shame." 

They brought the boy, wild-eyed with fear; they made 

him understand; 
They stood him by the dying man, a rifle in his hand. 
"Make haste!" said they; "the time is short, and you 

must kill or die." 
The Major puffed his cigarette, amusement in his eye. 
And then the dying Zouave heard, and raised his weary 

head: 
"Shoot, son, 'twill be the best for both; shoot swift and 

straight," he said. 
"Fire first and last, and do not flinch; for lost to hope 

am I; 
And I will murmur: Vive la France! and bless you ere 

I die." 

Half-blind with blows the boy stood there; he seemed to 

swoon and sway; 
Then in that moment woke the soul of little Jean 

Desprez. 
He saw the woods go sheening down; the larks were 

singing clear; 



150 THE WAR IN FERSE AND PROSE 

And oh! the scents and sounds of spring, how sweet they 

were! how dear! 
He felt the scent of new-mown hay, a soft breeze fanned 

his brow; 
O God ! the paths of peace and toil ! How precious were 

they now! 

The summer days and summer ways, how bright with 

hope and bliss! 
The autumn such a dream of gold ; and all must end in this: 
This shining rifle in his hand, that shambles all around; 
The Zouave there with dying glare; the blood upon the 

ground ; 
The brutal faces round him ringed, the evil eyes aflame; 
That Prussian bully standing by as if he watched a game. 
"Make haste and shoot," the Major sneered; a minute 

more I give; 
A minute more to kill your friend, if you yourself would 

live." 

They only saw a barefoot boy, with blanched and twitch- 
ing face; 

They did not see within his eyes the glory of his race; 

The glory of a million men who for fair France have 
died, 

The splendor of self-sacrifice that will not be denied. 

Yet he was but a peasant lad, and oh ! but life was sweet. 

"Your minute's nearly gone, my lad," he heard a voice 
repeat. 

"Shoot! Shoot!" the dying Zouave moaned; "Shoot! 
Shoot!" the soldier said. 

Then Jean Desprez reached out and shot . . . the Prus- 
sian Major dead! 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 151 

SUDDENLY ONE DAY 

AUTHOR UNKNOWN 
From The Westminster Gazette 

Found in the pocket of Capt. T. P. C. Wilson, a British officer, 
killed in action. 

CUDDENLY one day 

The last ill shall fall away. 
The last little beastliness that is in our blood 
Shall drop from us as the sheath drops from the bud, 
And the great spirit of man shall struggle through 
And spread huge branches underneath the blue. 
In any mirror, be it bright or dim, 
Man will see God, staring back at him. 



WE'RE MARCHIN' WITH THE COUNTRY 

FRANK L. STANTON 
in Journal of Education 

'T'HE old flag is a-doin' her very level best, 

She's a rainbow roun' the country from the rosy east 
to the west; 
An' the eagle's in the elements with sunshine on his 

breast, 
An' we're marchin' with the country in the mornin'! 

We're marchin' to the music that is ringin' far and nigh ; 
You can hear the hallelujahs as the regiments go by; 
We'll live for this old country, or for freedom's cause 

we'll die — 
We're marchin' with the country in the mornin'! 



152 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

DO YOUR ALL 

EDGAR A. GUEST. 
From Mr. Guest's book of war time rhymes, "Over Here." Published 
and copyright, 1918, by The Reilly & Britton Company, Publishers, 
Chicago. Special permission to reproduce in this book. 

" T\0 your bit!" How cheap and trite 
Seems that phrase in such a fight! 
"Do your bit!" That cry recall, 
Change it now to "Do your all!" 
Do your all, and then do more; 
Do what you're best fitted for; 
Do your utmost, do and give. 
You have but one life to live. 

Do your finest, do your best, 
Don't let up and stop to rest, 
Don't sit back and idly say, 
"I did something yesterday." 
Come on! Here's another hour. 
Give it all you have of power. 
Here's another day that needs 
Everybody's share of deeds. 

"Do your bit!" of course, but then 
Do it time and time again; 
Giving, doing, all should be 
Up to full capacity. 
Now's no time to pick and choose. 
We've a war we must not lose. 
Be your duty great or small, 
Do it well and do it all. 

Do by careful, patient living, 
Do by cheerful, open giving; 
Do by serving day by day 
At whatever post you may; 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 153 

Do by sacrificing pleasure, 
Do by scorning hours of leisure. 
Now to God and country give 
Every minute that you live. 

FLAG OF THE FREE 

FRANCIS T. SMITH, 
in Popular Educator 

"CLOAT thou majestically, 

Proudly, triumphantly, 
Ever protectingly, 
Flag of the free. 
No foe our faith shall blight 
In thy unconquered might, 
Emblem of truth and right, 
We bow to thee. 

As in grim days of yore — 
Now on a hostile shore, 
Fulfill thy pledge once more, 
Red, white and blue. 
Long as thy stately bars 
And heaven's reflected stars 
Dishonor never mars, 
We will be true. 

Prove to the waiting world, 
When free men are assailed, 
Our standard is unfurled 
For justice still. 
Strengthen us lest we fall, 
Inspiring one and all, 
Urging thy righteous call, 
Under God's will. 



154 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

THE SERVICE FLAG 

WILLIAM HERSCHELL 

in The Indianapolis News 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

T\EAR little flag in the window there, 

Hung with a tear and a woman's prayer; 
Child of Old Glory, born with a star — 
Oh, what a wonderful flag you are! 

Blue is your star in its field of white, 
Dipped in the red that was born of fight; 
Born of the blood that our forbears shed 
To raise your mother, the Flag, o'erhead. 

And now you've come, in this frenzied day, 
To speak from a window — to speak and say 
"I am the voice of a soldier-son 
Gone to be gone till the victory's won. 

"I am the flag of the Service, sir; 

The flag of his mother — I speak for her 

Who stands by my window and waits and fears, 

But hides from the others her unwept tears. 

"I am the flag of the wives who wait 

For the safe return of a martial mate, 

A mate gone forth where the war god thrives 

To save from sacrifice other men's wives. 

"I am the flag of the sweethearts true; 
The often unthought of — the sisters, too; 
I am the flag of a mother's son 
And won't come down till the victory's won!" 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 155 

Dear little flag in the window there, 
Hung with a tear and a woman's prayer; 
Child of Old Glory, born with a star — 
Oh, what a wonderful flag you are ! 



A SMALL TOWN SPORT 

DAMON RUNYON 
in The Herald and Examiner, Chicago 

In this piece of work Mr. Runyon presents a good specimen of a 
large class, a young fellow who was going the trifling way to the Ever- 
lasting Bonfire when the war caught him up and made a man of him. 
Thousands of such cases, before the war little better than waste human 
material, have gone out to fight, have found themselves, have made 
good, and will come home sobered, serious men, worthy to stand 
among those to whom the nation's destinies must be confided. 

CON o' ol' Miz McAuliffe, the widder o' Box-Car 

° Jack, 

An' ol' time shack on the Santa Fe, who run to Dodge 

and back. 
He was killed in a wreck at La Junta, and he left the 

wife and boy — 
A kid knee-high to a hop-toad, and tagged by the name o' 

Roy. 

This Roy was sort o' onery, and he never would go to 

school. 
He spent the most o' childhood days in learnin' the game 

o' pool. 
His shoulders grew somewhat rounded, and his chest it 

grew rather thin — 
But, gosh, he grew to a marvel at knockin' them pool 

balls in! 



156 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

Pool-shootin' Roy, we called him, and many a night I've 

set 
Watchin' him clean the table, and puffin' his cigaret. 
Sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and playin' so ca'm and 

cool — 
If ever a lad was born for a thing, he was born for playin' 

this pool! 

Fifteen balls was a cinch for him — fifteen balls from the 

break ; 
One ball loose from the bunch a bit, and the whole 

darned rack he'd take. 
He was great on a combination, and great on a cut-shot, 

too — 
He'd make those pool balls talk to him when he started 

handlin' a cue! 

And some of us thought he'd be champeen, but every one 
didn't agree, 

For Doctor Wilcox wanted to bet he'd die of the old 
T. B. 

But the war it settled the question, for the first of our 
kids to go 

Was Pool-Shootin' Roy McAuliffe — our poolrooms suf- 
fered a blow. 

What is that thing the Frenchmen give to a good game 

fightin' boyf 
Say it again — the Croix de Guerre? Well, that's what 

they give to Roy. 
It seems fifteen Germans were on him, and handlin him 

rather mean, 
When he got a machine gun to workin and pocketed the 

whole fifteen! 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 157 

SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE 

LE ROY C. HENDERSON 

in Cartoons Magazine 
Permission to reproduce in this book 

CHE stands alone beside the gate, 

Where oft with him she stood before, 
And seems to hear his voice relate 

Life's sweetest story o'er and o'er; 
A hand she feels upon her own, 

Unconsciously a tender glance 
She gives, then starts and stands alone, 

The lover sleeps — Somewhere in France. 

She could have kept him if she would — 

His heart and soul were all her own — 
But true love knew and understood 

That Honor is its own true throne; 
She heard the bugles' blaring sound 

And whispered — "Go and take your chance." 
There 'mid the scenes of war he found 

Eternal peace — Somewhere in France. 

She knows not where that spot may be — 

On barren plain, in hidden dell, 
On wooded hill, beside the sea — 

The lips that would will never tell ; 
She knows not what his last words were, 

The thoughts that come with Death's advance, 
And yet, she feels they were of her, 

Those last fond thoughts — Somewhere in France. 



158 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

THE SERVICE FLAG 

J. E. EVANS 
in The Sovereign Visitor 

CAY, pa! What is a service flag? 

I see them everywhere. 
There's little stars sewed on them; 

What are they doing there? 
Sometimes there's lots of little stars, 

And sometimes just a few. 
Poor Widow Jones has only one — 

I saw her crying, too. 

My darling boy, those little stars 

Upon a field of white, 
Are emblems of our glorious boys 

Enrolling for the right. 
The border, as you see, is red, 

Which represents their blood; 
The stars are blue, the heavenly hue; 

The white is always good. 

Each star you see means some brave boy 

Has left his hearth and home 
And gone to fight for Freedom's cause 

Wherever he may roam. 
So when you see a lot of stars 

Lift up your heart with joy, 
And when you see a single one 

Pray for some mother's boy. 

They go away, those gallant lads, 
Across the wreck-strewn sea; 

They go to pledge their country's faith 
For God and liberty. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 159 

The Stars and Stripes they bear aloft 

To join the British flag, 
And, with the colors of brave France, 

They mean to end "Der Tag." 
And soon, my boy, that service flag, 

Born in the nation's heart, 
Will show the world that, when unfurled, 

We proudly take our part. 



"HEARTS ARE TOUCHING" 

"DOEMS need not be rhymed, nor wrought in verses. 
This brave and touching one occurred in a letter writ- 
ten by a French schoolgirl: 

"It was only a little river; almost a brook; it was 
called the Yser. One could talk from one side to the 
other without raising one's voice, and the birds could fly 
over it with one sweep of their wings. And on the two 
banks there were millions of men, the one toward the 
other, eye to eye. But the distance which separated them 
was greater than the stars in the sky; it was the distance 
which separates right from injustice. 

"The ocean is so vast that the sea gulls do not dare 
to cross it. During seven days and seven nights the great 
steamships of America, going at full speed, drive through 
the deep waters before the lighthouses of France come 
into view; but from one side to the other, hearts are 
touching." 



160 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

MEN OF THE BLOOD AND MIRE 

DANIEL M. HENDERSON 
in Everybody's Magazine 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

"VW"E whom the draft rejected; 
We who stay by the stuff; 
We who measure our manhood 

And find that it isn't enough ; 
We who are gray and burdened; 

We whom the trades require — 
Will you permit us to hail you, 

Men of the Blood and Mire? 

We of the thundering forum; 

We of the pen and press; 
We who are pouring our utmost 

Into our land's success ; 
We of the Cross and Triangle, 
Lofty in deed and desire — 
God, how we shrivel before you, 

Men of the Blood and Mire ! 

Aye, we are square with conscience — 

We are reservists all; 
Aye, when your ranks are gaping, 

We will fight where you fall; 
Yet, while we wait, your altar 

Flames in the gas and fire — 
We are the shade of your glory, 

Men of the Blood and Mire! 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 161 

THE SONG OF THE DEAD 

J. H. M. ABBOTT 

in The London Outlook 

Large numbers of Australian and New Zealand volunteers are 
already on the water bound for Vancouver, en route for Europe. — Para- 
graph of War News, 1915. 

f^H, Land of Ours, hear the song we make for you — 
Land of yellow wattle bloom, land of smiling 
Spring — 
Hearken to the after words, land of pleasant memories, 
Shea-oaks of the shady creeks, hear the song we sing. 
For we lie quietly, underneath the lonely hills, 
Where the land is silent, where the guns have ceased to 

boom, 
Here we are waiting, and shall wait for Eternity — 
Here on the battle-fields, where we found our doom. 

Spare not thy pity — Life is strong and fair for you — 
City by the waterside, homestead on the plain. 
Keep ye remembrarice, keep ye a place for us — 
So all the bitterness of dying be not vain. 
Oh, be ye mindful, mindful of our honor's name; 
Oh, be ye careful of the word ye speak in jest — 
For we have bled for you ; for we have died for you — 
Yea, we have given, we have given our best. 

Life that we might have lived, love that we might have 

loved, 
Sorrow of all sorrows, we have drunk thy bitter lees. 
Speak thou a word to us, here in our narrow beds — 
Word of thy mourning lands beyond the Seas. 
Lo, we have paid the price, paid the cost of Victory. 
Do not forget, when the rest shall homeward come — 



162 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

Mother of our childhood, sister of our manhood days, 
Loved of our heavy hearts, whom we have left alone. 

Hark to the guns — pause and turn, and think of us- 
Red was our life's blood, and heavy was the cost. 
But ye have Nationhood, but ye are a people strong — 
Oh, have ye love for the brothers ye have lost? 
Oh, by the blue skies, clear beyond the mountain tops, 
Oh, by the dear, dun plains where we were bred, — 
What be your tokens, tokens that ye grieve for us, 
Tokens of your Sorrowing for we that be Dead? 



THE REFUGEES 

W. G. S. 
in the London Spectator 

T)AST the marching men, where the great road runs, 

Out of burning Ypres the pale women came: 
One was a widow (listen to the guns!) — 
She wheeled a heaped-up barrow. One walked lame 
And dragged two little children at her side 
Tired and coughing with the dust. 

The third 
Nestled a dead child on her breast and tried 
To suckle him. They never spoke a word. 

So they came down along the Ypres road. 

A soldier stayed his mirth to watch them pass, 

Turned and in silence helped them with their load, 

And led them to a field and gave them bread. 

I saw them hide their faces in the grass 

And cry, as women might when Christ was dead. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 163 

SONG OF THE WINDS 

MARY LANIER MAGRUDER 

in The Saturday Evening Post 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

CONG of the west wind whispering — listen 

The murmuring waves of the golden grain ; 
The lisp of rivers that ripple and glisten, 
Filled to brim with the night's wild rain, 
Seaward going to come again, 
Pouring the torrents of spring on the acres 
Fallow and fertile. The wide world's bread 
Harvested now by the busy rakers, 
Gleaners afield when the dawn is red; 
Wind of the west, where the leaning sheaves 
Darken the shadows as daylight leaves 
Or heap the granary under the eaves, 
Sing the song to us over and over, 
Happy harvests and multifold, 
Sweeter than breath of thyme or clover, 
Western wind over sheaves of gold ! 

Wind of the south from the wide prairie, 

Mesquite barren and cactus lean, 

Where the fleet herds browse and the coyote wary 

Pierces the night with a note too keen; 

And the brown plain's grass grows all between. 

Fields where the wild sage blows and billows, 

Purple waves on a sea of jade; 

And the bending cottonwoods touch the willows, 

And the water holes glimmer in light and shade. 

Then swinging up from a land of drouth, 

And on by the bayous flowing south, 



164 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

There by the wandering river's mouth, 
White is the sod with the cotton blossom, 
Whiter the lint that has broken its pod 
And lies like snow on the sad earth's bosom, 
Fresh and fair from the hand of God. 

Wind of the north from the long lakes sweeping 
Down to the meadows and hills of corn, 
Over the creeks where the perch are leaping, 
And the mill wheels hum at the break of morn ; 
Hills where the clover is newly shorn; 
And sharply pungent as old-world gorse is 
The hay that the wagons have hurried home; 
And under the steady feet of the horses 
The furrows grow in the loose black loam. 
And ever the amber tassels seize 
The wings of every riotous breeze 
To fling gonfalons of golden sleaze, 
Silken and soft, to the earth's far borders: 
"August heat but hastens the days 
When the hungry herds and the empty larders 
Shall all be filled with the Indian's maize." 

Wind of the east — ah, east wind blowing 
Long, long leagues from a land o'erseas; 
Empty hands that can know no sowing, 
Passionate pleading hands are these — 
Palms outstretched to us over the seas; 
Ah, the heart of France is a thing to cherish! 
But her werewolf, Hunger, cannot be slain 
Till out of our largess, lest she perish, 
We hasten the caravels of blessed grain. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 165 

Till the sea-shark's teeth forever are drawn, 

And the dread great guns are stilled at the dawn, 

We must hold high courage and carry on. 

So winds of the north, south, west, your treasure — 

Corn and cattle and golden grain — 

Shall crowd the ships to their fullest measure, 

And the bread thus cast will return again! 



"WHAT THINK YE?" 

W. A. BRISCOE 
in The United Empire Magazine 
(Journal of the Royal Colonial Institute, London) 

"VW"HAT are we fighting for, men of my race, 

And the best of us dying for? 
For wealth — or profit — or power — or fame ? 
Or a statesman's lust? or a monarch's name? 
Or for aught that our sons of sons could blame 
Did we throw the dice of war? 

Why are ye weeping, sisters of mine, 

With a mien so proud and brave? 
Do ye weep because of the utter woe? 
Are ye proud because ye would have it so, 
Though Fate should have dealt you the final blow 

And there's nothing to mark the grave? 

What are we fighting for, women and men, 

And the best of us dying for? 
It was just because we had signed our name, 
And the Briton's creed is to honor the same: 
It was only for that, and our own fair fame 

We took up the gage of war. 



166 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

THE MAN BEHIND 

DOUGLAS MALLOCH 

in The American Lumberman 
Permission to reproduce in this book 

'T'HE band is on the quarter-deck, the starry flag un- 
1 furled; 

The air is mad with music and with cheers. 
The ship is bringing home to us the homage of the world 

And writing new our name upon the years. 
Her officer is on the bridge ; we greet him with hurrahs ; 

But some one says, "Not he the glory won; 
Not he alone who wears the braid, deserves the loud 
applause, 

Oh, don't forget the man behind the gun!" 
'Tis said that to embattled seas our ship sailed forth at 
dawn, 

Unheeding shot, unheeding hidden mine; 
And through the thunders of the fight went steaming 
bravely on, 

The nation's floating fortress on the brine. 
And never throbbing engine stopped, nor parted plate or 
seam 

In all that bloody day from sun to sun ; 
The good ship sang her battle cry in hissing clouds of 
steam 

To cheer anew the man behind the gun. 
I look upon her shining bore, her engine's pulsing heart, 

I look upon her bulwarks shaped of steel; 
I know there is another art, as great as gunner's art, 

That makes the world at arms in homage kneel. 
This ship, defying shot and shell, defying winds and seas, 

Is fruit of honest labor, rightly done; 
The man who built the ship, my lads, remember him, for 
he's 

The man behind the man behind the gun ! 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 167 

HERE AT VERDUN 

CHESTER M. WRIGHT 

r STAND on a peak at Verdun — a scarred, torn peak 

of hope and death. 

Far under my feet run the mystic passages of Fort Sou- 
ville. 

I strain my eyes to look over a great field where men 
have swayed in the death lock with eternity. 

Ahead and to the right and left stretch fifteen kilometres 
gaping with wounds, each shell hole a pit of death, a hid- 
eous mark left by the scourge of despotism. 

Ahead is that foul stretch from which came and still 
come the hordes of tyranny, with breath of poison and 
sting of contamination. 

Behind is ruin. Never was such ruin. A blight, a 
torture, a world pain, piercing and cruel. 

And yet behind is hope. Behind are the legions of lib- 
erty, the soldiers of our children's freedom. 

Behind are the endless legions, coming, coming, com- 
ing. Behind are the veteran legions of France and Britain. 
Behind are the countless legions of America, coming, com- 
ing, coming — a brown ribbon of promise stretching across 
the sea to the shrine of Liberty! 

Here where these jagged slashes in the yellow earth 
have formed a glorious tomb for three hundred thousand 
gallant French — here is the testing ground of our destiny. 
Here they have held for us our heritage ! Here they have 
perished in the eternal splendor of self-sacrifice for us! 
Here is their borderland — and ours! 

Here they have written with their ebbing blood the 
slogan that has thrilled the world — "They shall not pass!" 

The gaunt and sinister craters, one merging into the 
ragged rim of another, the bits of shell, the battered hel- 



168 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

mets, broken guns, ill-assorted refuse of combat — each 
shattered particle a marker for some valiant soul "gone 
west" in service of humanity. 

Here, over this land glorified by a nobility of deed 
than which there has been no more exalted, must our war 
be waged. Out of this hallowed ground comes the call 
of those who have given of their best — the call to our 
great land for Old Glory's best! 

There will come to us wounds that will rack our bodies 
and drain the coursing blood of our vibrant veins. There 
will come to us the aching pain of suffering and loss — 
here on these red fields of France. But we will save 
our souls and our nation's soul! And we will save our 
heritage and give to the billions of the world the right 
to theirs. 

So the brown ribbon of youth winds across the sea — to 
Verdun and to the long, thin lines on either side. Here 
will we prove our right to life and liberty! 

Brown ribbon of promise! 

Hoping, longing, wounded France! 

Brown ribbon of youth and high resolve! 

Brown ribbon of Liberty! 

Here at Verdun! 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 169 

THE ANXIOUS ANTHEMIST 

GUY FORRESTER LEE 

in The Chicago Sunday Tribune 

Written when the Allied armies were chasing the Germans across 
the fields of France and Flanders, in the summer of 1918. 

SIT down to write a poem of our fighting men's 
renown, 
And I scarce get fairly started when they take another 

town. 
A British commentator's praise I versify, and then 
A Frenchman up and multiplies the happy words by ten. 
The cable service headlines say the Yankees swat the Hun, 
But ere I get a jingle framed they've got more on the run. 
I'd like to be their Boswell in a khaki-lauding gem, 
But darn those doughboys' peppy hides — I can't keep up 

with them! 
It tickles me quite some to hear of how they're spreading 

Teuts 
Around the landscape, and I'll say their ways and means 

are beauts; 
The Fritzian din of "Kamerad" is drowning out the shells 
As U. S. shockers shock the shockers with their own pet 

hells. 
I want the good work to go on, but I have one request 
To make of them before they lay the kaiser out to rest, 
And that is this: Don't stop your war; continue till 

you've won, 
But kindly take a lay-off till I get this anthem done! 



170 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

A RIDE IN FRANCE 

"0. C. PLATOON" 

in The Manchester (England) Guardian 

HTROTTING the roan horse 

Over the meadows, 
Purple of thistles, 

Purple of dover; 
Over the clay-brown path, 

All through the grass-lands, 
Glory of meadow flowers, 

Over! Come over! 



On to the highway winding o'er the hill, 
White willow-bordered, grassy-banked; 
On through a village ruined and broken. 
Grass grows in the rubble-heaps, 
Poppies fill the courtyards, 
Swallows build in broken walls, 
And everything is still. 



While at the corner — walk, O horse of mine, 

A Christ hangs from a crucifix beside a broken shrine. 



On to the path at the side of the white road, 
Cantering, galloping, breasting the rise ; 

Any road, every road, each is the right road, 
Facing the east, the sun in my eyes. 



Trotting the roan horse 
Over the meadows, 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 171 

Purple of thistles, 

Purple of clover; 
Over the clay-brown path, 

Back through the grass-lands, 
All through the meadow flowers; 

Over! Come over! 



THERE WILL BE DREAMS AGAIN 

MABEL HILLYER EASTMAN 

in Munsey's Magazine 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

'"FHERE will be dreams again! The grass will spread 

Her velvet verdure over earth's torn breast; 
By ragged shard, half-hid, where rust runs red, 
The soaring lark in spring will build her nest. 

There will be dreams again! The primrose pale 

Will shelter where the belching guns plowed deep; 

The trees will whisper, and the nightingale 
Chant golden monodies where heroes sleep. 

There will be dreams again ! The stars look down 
On youthful lovers — oh, first love, how sweet! 

And men will wed, and childish laughter crown 
Life's awe-compelling miracle complete. 

There will be dreams again ! Oh, thou forlorn 
That crumbling trench or the slow heaving sea 

Hath snatched thy dead — oh, pray thee, do not mourn! 
There will be dreams — thy loved shall come to thee! 



172 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

THE BOY NEXT DOOR 

S. E. RISER 

in The Saturday Evening Post 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

'"THERE used to be a boy next door 

Whom I often have longed to throttle; 
I've wished a thousand times and more 

That he had died while "on the bottle"! 
Oft in the past it has been hard 

For me to check my inclination, 
When he had cluttered up our yard, 

To hand him heavy castigation. 

With freckles on his tilted nose 

And ears that far in space protruded, 
He was not one, as heaven knows, 
To whom I in my prayers alluded. 

Derisively he showed his tongue 

And scorned the warnings which I gave him, 

But now I list myself among 

The ones who pray the Lord to save him. 

How vividly I can recall 

Him at the window, making faces; 
I used to think that in him all 

The impish traits had lurking places. 
He stole the green fruit from my trees, 

Not caring how it might affect him; 
Today he's fighting overseas, 

And may the God of hosts protect him! 

From childhood into youth he passed, 
And then my little garden flourished ; 

And still his friendship was not classed 
Among the treasures which I nourished. 

He tortured first a slide trombone, 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 173 

And next he tried a squeaky riddle; 
His voice took on a raucous tone 

That used to rasp me down the middle. 

How soldierly our lad appeared 

When with his comrades he departed! 
I wonder if he knew I cheered, 

Or guessed that I was heavy-hearted. 
If I have damned him heretofore 

I now retract each foul aspersion; 
God bless the boy who lived next door, 

And used to be my pet aversion! 

THE FLAG 

EDWARD A. HORTON 
in Popular Educator 

"^7HY do I love our flag? Ask why 

Flowers love the sunshine. Or, ask why 

The needle turns with eager eye 

Toward the great stars in northern sky. 

I love Old Glory, for it waved 

Where loyal hearts the Union saved. 

I love it, since it shelters me 

And all most dear, from sea to sea. 

I love it, for it bravely flies 

In freedom's cause, 'neath foreign skies. 

I love it for its blessed cheer, 
Its starry hopes and scorn of fear; 
For good achieved and good to be 
To us and to humanity. 

It is the people's banner bright, 
Forever guiding toward the light; 
Foe of the tyrant, friend of right, 
God give it leadership and might! 



174 THE W AR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

THE WAR HORSE 

LIEUT. L. FLEMING, B. E. F., FRANCE 
Shortly after the verses here following were received from France 
by the American Red Star Animal Relief, Lieutenant Fleming fell in 
action. His voice, coming to us as from a plane of life where dumb 
creatures do not suffer, is a call to civilization to do its duty by the 
animals whose kind were silent heroes of the war. 

"V\7HEN the shells are bursting round, 

Making craters in the ground, 
And the rifle fire's something awful cruel, 
When you 'ear them in the night 
(My Gawd! it makes you fight!) 
An' yer thinks of them poor souls agoing 'ome, 
When you 'ear the Sergeant shout 
"Get y'r respirators out," 
Then you looks and sees a cloud of something white. 

The gas is coming on 

An' yer knows before it's gone 

That the 'orse wots with you now won't be by then ; 
Yer loves him like yer wife 
An' yer wants to save 'is life, 

But there ain't no respirators, not for them. 
I was standing by 'is side 
On the night my old 'orse died, 

An' I shan't forget 'is looks towards the last. 
'E was choking mighty bad, 
An' 'is eyes was looking mad, 

An' I seed that — 'e — was dying — dying fast. 

An' I want to tell yer 'ow 
It's the 'orses gets us through, 

For they strains their blooming 'earts out when 
they're pressed. 
We was galloping like 'ell 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 175 

When a bullet 'its old Bill, 

I c'd see the blood a-streaming down 'is face. 
It 'ad got 'im in the 'ead, 
But 'e stuck to it and led 
Till we comes to "Action right," 
An' then 'e fell. 

I 'adn't time to choose 
I 'ad to cut 'im loose, 

For 'e'd done all 'e c'd afore a gun. 
When I looks at 'im again 
'E was out of all 'is pain, 

An' I 'opes 'is soul will rest for wot 'e done. 
If it 'adn't been for Bill 
We should all 'ave been in 'ell, 

For we only got in action just in time. 
Ain't it once occurred to you 
Wot the 'orses there go through ? 

They 'elps to win our fight an' does it fine. 

When 'is blood is flowing 'ot 
From a wound what 'e's just got 

An' 'is breath is coming 'ard an' short an' thin, 
'E can see the men about, 
Getting water dealed out, 

But not a drop is brought to comfort 'im; 
Tho 'is tongue is parched and dry, 
'E can see the water by, 
But 'is wounds are left to bleed, 
An' 'e can't tell us 'is need, 
So 'e's just got to bear 'is pain — an' think. 

There are 'eroes big and small, 
But the biggest of them all 

Is the 'orse wot lays a-dying on the ground. 



176 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

'E doesn't cause no wars, 
An' 'e's only fighting yours, 

An' 'e gives 'is life for you without a sound. 
'E doesn't get no pay, 
Just some oats, and p'r'aps some hay; 

If 'e's killed, no one thinks a bit of 'im. 
'E's just as brave an' good 
As any men wot ever stood, 

But there's mighty little thought or 'elp for 'im. 



PARENTHETICALLY SPEAKING. 

From The Chicago Tribune 

This delightful whimsy will serve to keep in mind the positively- 
affectionate exchange of greetings between Carranza and his friend 
Wilhelm, when Wilhelm was celebrating what he did not know was the 
last peaceful birthday in his life. 

/~\H, Carranza sent a cable- (on the kaiser's birthday) 

gram 
To the kaiser there at Pots- (that's a German palace) 

dam, 
And it said, "Look out for Uncle (that's my northern 
neighbor) Sam, 
For he's coming after you!" 



Then the kaiser waved his iron (as the papers have it) 

hand, 
And he danced a little sara- (that's a Turkish tango) 

band, 
And he said: "I'm safe in Heli- (in the German sea) 

goland, 
But I thank my friend Carranza." 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 177 

WORLD SERIES OPENED— BATTER UP! 

in The Stars and Stripes, A. E. F., France 

'T'HE outfield is a-creepin' in to catch the kaiser's pop, 
And here's a southpaw twirler with a lot of vim 
and hop! 
He's tossed the horsehide far away to plug the hand- 
grenade ; 

What matter if on muddy grounds this game of war is 

played ? 
He'll last through extra innings and he'll hit as well as 

pitch ; 
His smoking Texas leaguers'll make the Fritzies seek the 

ditch ! 

He's just about to groove it toward a ducking Fritzie's 

bean; 
His crossfire is the puzzlingest that ever yet was seen ; 
His spittle is a deadly thing; his little inshoot curve 
Will graze some Heinie's heaving ribs and make him lose 

his nerve. 

Up in the air he never goes ; he always cuts the plate, 
No matter if the bleachers rise and start "The Hymn 

of Hate;" 
And pacifistic coaching never once has got his goat. 
Just watch him heave across the top the latest Yankee 

note! 

The Boches claim the Umpire is a-sidin' with their nine, 
But we are not the boobs to fall for such a phony line ; 
We know the game is fair and square, decisions on the 

level ; 
The only boost the kaiser gets is from his pal, The Devil ! 



178 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

The series now is opened, and the band begins to play; 
The batteries are warming up; the crowd shouts, "Hip- 
Hurray!" 
The catcher is a-wingin' 'em to second, third and first, 
And if a Heinie tries to steal, he's sure to get the worst. 

So watch the southpaw twirler in his uniform O. D. 
Retire to the players' bench the Boches — one, two, three! 
He'll never walk a bloomin' one, nor let 'em hit it out. 
Just watch him make 'em fan the air and put the Hun 
to rout! 

EDITH CAVELL 

McLANDBURGH WILSON 
From Miss Wilson's book entitled "The Little Flag On Main Street," 
published and copyright, 1917, by The Macmillan Company, New York. 
Special permission to insert in this book. 

/^\N law and love and mercy 

Was laid the German curse 
When to her execution 
Was led the British nurse. 

In brutal might they thought her 

Of help and friendship shorn; 
John Brown, Jeanne d'Arc, all martyrs, 

Companioned her that morn. 

A harmless, tender woman, 

They took her to her doom; 
A dread, resistless spirit 

She rises from the tomb. 

Still Germany shall fear her, 

For since that bloody dawn 
Through all the earth that trembles 

Her soul goes marching on! 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 179 

TO SERVE IS TO GAIN 

CHARLES H. MACKINTOSH 
in Logging, Duluth 

** TJE profits most who serves us best!" 
Let each who labors, lives and dies 
Beneath these star-bespangled skies 
Go write that motto on his breast! 

"He profits most" — Here is no call 

To selfish ease or sordid gain; 

Who serves himself will serve in vain; 
Who profits most must serve us all. 

And he has most who gives the most, 
Since what is kept can but decay 
— And Death still treads his sleepless way 

Among our myriad human host. 



THEY SHALL RETURN 

J. LEWIS MILLIGAN 
in The Toronto Globe 

HTHEY shall return when the wars are over, 
When battles are memories dim and far; 
Where guns now stand shall be corn and clover, 
Flowers shall bloom where the blood-drops are. 

They shall return with laughing faces, 
Limbs that are lithe and hearts new-born; 

Yea, we shall see them in old home-places, 
Lovelier yet in the light of morn. 



180 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

"TO THE IRISH DEAD" 

BY ESSEX EVANS 

The author of these heart-touching lines is a Queenslander of Welsh 
derivation. Sir Herbert Warren, K. C. V. O., of the University of Ox- 
ford, has this to say of him and of the Toast: "They sey that no one 
but an Irishman understands Ireland, that she will listen to no one but 
an Irishman. Wales is near to her in geography and in race. I have 
thought she perhaps might listen to a Welsh voice. She has one today, 
now whispering, now ringing, across St. George's Channel. Will she 
heed it ? Who knows ?" 

'"PIS a green isle set in a silver water, 

A fairy isle where the shamrock grows, 
Land of Legend, the Dream-Queen's daughter — 

Out of the Fairies' hands she rose. 
They touched her harp with a tender sighing, 

A spirit-song from a world afar, 
They touched her heart with a fire undying 

To fight and follow her battle-star. 

Too long, too long thro' the grey years growing 

Feud and faction have swept between 
The thistledown and the red rose blowing, 

And the three-fold leaf of the shamrock green; 
But the seal of blood, ye shall break it never: 

With rifles grounded and bare of head 
We drink to the dead who live forever — 

A silent toast — To the Irish dead! 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 181 

THE GOOSESTEP IN ERIN 

P. M. 
From B. L. T.'s column, in The Chicago Tribune 

The Kaiser's government promised to arm and aid a revolution in 
Ireland in 1917, and kept its promise in the conventional German way. 

'T'HERE is joy in Enniscorthy, there is glee in old 

Tralee, 
For 'tis the kaiser's edict that Erin must be free. 
Call out the hosts of Hogans, the Murphys, the Devines, 
The O'Connors, the O'Connells, the O'Donnells, the 

O'Briens, 
The McConnells, the McFaddens, the McShanes, and 

the McGurks, 
The Coughlans and the Kennas, the Scullys and the 

Burkes. 

The kaiser lifted up his voice and sez, "Me heroes bold, 
Tell me," sez he, "which wan of ye this scepter now shall 

hold." 
From the Shannon to the Liffey, from the Boyne unto 

the Lee, 
Every mother's son of all of them stood up and shouted, 

"Me!" 

The kaiser drew his shinin' sword and swung it o'er his 

head. 
" 'Tis me," sez he, "yer king will be, with the green above 

the red! 
Now drill, ye tarriers, every wan, beneath your colors 

green, 
Or I'll fill yez full of Kultur from my great big bomba- 



182 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

There is gloom in Enniscorthy, there is grief in old 

Tralee, 
For the Turks must step the goosestep in a land that 

would be free. 
When the mailed fist of the kaiser drives the English to 

the sea, 
Then they'll start to raising snakes in dear old Ireland. 



RAIN ON YOUR OLD TIN HAT 

LIEUT. J. H. WICKERSHAM 
Written at the battle front in France and sent to his mother, 
Mrs. W. E. Damon. Lieutenant Wickersham was killed in action 
September 14, 1918. 

HTHE mist hangs low and quiet on a ragged line of 
1 hills, 

There's a whispering of wind across the flat; 
You'd be feeling kind of lonesome if it wasn't for one 
thing — 
The patter of the raindrops on your old tin hat. 

An' you just can't help a-figuring — sitting there alone — 
About this war and hero stuff and that, 

And you wonder if they haven't sort of got things 
twisted up, 
While the rain keeps up its patter on your old tin hat. 

When you step off with the outfit to do your little bit, 
You're simply doing what you're s'posed to do — 

And you don't take time to figure what you gain or what 
you lose, 
It's the spirit of the game that brings you through. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 183 

But back at home she's waiting, writing cheerful little 
notes, 

And every night she offers up a prayer 
And just keeps on a-hoping that her soldier boy is safe — 

The mother of the boy who's over there. 

And, fellows, she's the hero of this great big ugly war, 
And her prayer is on that wind across the flat; 

And don't you reckon maybe it's her tears, and not the 
rain, 
That's keeping up the patter on your old tin hat? 



184 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

THERE ARE CROCUSES AT NOTTINGHAM 

Written in the Trenches 
Flanders, spring of 1917. Authorship unknown. 

/^\UT here the dogs of war run loose, 
^"^ Their whipper-in is Death; 
Across the spoilt and battered fields 

We hear their sobbing breath. 
The fields where grew the living corn 

Are heavy with our dead ; 
Yet still the fields at home are green 

And I have heard it said: 

that— 
There are crocuses at Nottingham! 
Wild crocuses at Nottingham ! 
Blue crocuses at Nottingham! 
Though here the grass is red. 

There are little girls at Nottingham 

Who do not dread the boche, 
Young girls at school at Nottingham 

(Lord! how I need a wash!) 
There are little boys at Nottingham 

Who never hear a gun; 
There are silly fools at Nottingham 

Who think we're here for fun. 
When— 
There are crocuses at Nottingham! 
Young crocus buds at Nottingham! 
Thousands of buds at Nottingham 
Ungathered by the Hun. 

But here we trample down the grass 

Into a purple slime; 
There lives no tree to give the birds 

House room in pairing time. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 185 

We live in holes, like cellar rats, 

But through the noise and smell 
I often see those crocuses 
Of which the people tell. 

Why- 
There are crocuses at Nottingham! 
Bright crocuses at Nottingham! 
Real crocuses at Nottingham ! 
Because we're here in Hell. 

THE WAR ROSARY 

NELLIE HURST 
in The Westminster Gazette 

T KNIT, I knit, I pray, I pray. 

My knitting is my rosary. 
And as I weave the stitches gray, 

I murmur pray'rs continually. 
Gray loop, a sigh, gray knot, a wish, 

Gray row a chain of wistful pray'r, 
For thus to sit and knit and pray — 

This is of war the woman's share. 

And so I knit, and thus I pray, 

And keep repeating night and day, 
May God lead safely those dear feet 

That soon shall wear the web of gray. 
Now and again a selfish strain? 

But surely woman heart must yearn, 
And pray sometimes that she may hear 

The footsteps that return. 

But if, O God, Not that. 

But if it must be sacrifice complete, 
Then I will trust that afterward 

Thou wilt guide home those precious feet. 



186 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

VICTORY! 

S. J. DUNCAN-CLARK 

in The Chicago Evening Post, November 11, 1918 

Permission to reproduce in this book 

f*\ UT of the night it leaped the seas — 

The four long years of night! 
"The foe is beaten to his knees, 

And triumph crowns the fight!" 
It sweeps the world from shore to shore, 

By wave and wind 'tis flung, 
It grows into a mighty roar 

Of siren, bell and tongue. 
Where little peoples knelt in fear, 

They stand in joy today; 
The hour of their redemption here, 

Their feet on Freedom's way. 
The kings and kaisers flee their doom, 

Fall bloody crown and throne! 
Room for the people ! Room ! Make room ! 

They march to claim their own! 
Now God be praised we lived to see 

His Sun of Justice rise, 
His Sun of Righteous Liberty, 

To gladden all our skies! 
And God be praised for those who died, 

Whate'er their clime or breed, 
Who, fighting bravely side by side, 

A world from thraldom freed! 
And God be praised for those who, spite 

Of woundings sore and deep, 
Survive to see the Cause of Right 

O'er all its barriers sweep! 
God and the people — This our cry! 

O, God, thy peace we sing! 
The peace that comes through victory, 

And dwells where Thou art King. 



FOREIGN NAMES AND THEIR 
ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 189 

RULES FOR DISPLAYING THE FLAG 

1. Display the flag from its own pole, by day only, 
with union at top of pole. 

2. If no staff or pole is available, hang the flag 
undraped against a wall, right side out, which will bring 
the union in the upper left-hand corner if the stripes are 
horizontal, or in the upper right-hand corner, if perpen- 
dicular. 

3. Put it higher than your head. 

4. See that the flag you display and the flag you wear 
is not of a type obsolete since 1912. Let it have forty- 
eight stars in even rows, with its length one and nine- 
tenths times its width and two and one-half times the 
length of the union, the latter crossing seven stripes and 
resting upon the eighth, which is white. 

5. For draped decorations and profuse expression 
of the patriotic spirit use red, white and blue without 
stars. Give the flag itself an elevated, conspicuous place. 
Place nothing in front of it that would obscure any part. 



FOREIGN NAMES AND THEIR ENGLISH 
PRONUNCIATION 

TN any attempt to represent the native pronunciation to 
readers of English it will be necessary first to agree on 
certain symbols. Thus the combination eu may be used 
for the sound expressed by those letters in French, a sound 
like that of i in bird. Ang as in sang is the nearest Eng- 
glish equivalent to the French nasal vowel represented by 
in, ain, ein, or other similar combinations in French. Zh 
may stand for the sound of s in pleasure or z in azure. 



190 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 



Long and short vowels are to be pronounced as usually in 
English, short a as in cat, long a. as in hate, and so on. 

In French, th is given the consonant value of t. The 
letter 1, single or double, has the liquid sound of blended 
1 and y. An r following a consonant is aspirated with 
only a slight sound. A terminal n is softly nasalized. 

Following is a list of the names of places most fre- 
quently mentioned, with their pronunciation indicated 
phonetically : 



Aerschot — ahr-skot 
Aisne (River) — ain. 
Aix — ayks. 
Aix-la-Chapelle — ayks'-lah- 

shah-pell'. 
Alost — ah'-lawst. 
Alsace-Lorraine — al-sase' 

(Fr., ahl-sahs'). 
Amiens — a'mi-ens (Fr., ah-mi- 

ahn.) 
Antwerp — ant'-werp (Fr., 

ahn-ver'). 
Ardennes — ar-den' 
Ardres — ahrd-r. 
Argenteau — ar'-zhan'-to. 
Arlon — ahr'-long. 
Armentieres — ar'-man-tya. 
Arras — ahr-rahs. 
Aubervilliers — owe-ber-vee- 

lyay'. 
Audruicq — oh-drweek. 
Avesnes — ah-ven'. 
Avignon — ah-vee-nyon'. 
Avricourt — ah'-vr-coor'. 
Bailleul — bah-yeul'. 
Bapaume — bo-pome'. 
Basil — baz'il or bay'zil (Fr., 

bah-zeel'). 



Beaumont — bo-mong'. 
Beauvais — bowe-vay'. 
Belfort — bel-fore'. 
Belgrade — bel-grahd'. 
Bergues — bairg. 
Berlaimont — bair-leh-mong'. 
Besangon — beh-zahng-song'. 
Binche — bahn'-jhe. 
Blankenberghe — blan-ken- 

behr-yeh. 
Blois — blwah. 
Bosphorus — bos'-po-rus. 
Bosnia and Herzegovina — 

boz'ni-a, her'-tse-go-vee'-nah. 
Boulogne — bu-lone'. 
Bourbourg — boor-boork'. 
Bouvigny — boo-veen-ye. 
Braine l'Alleud — brain-luh- 

leuh'. 
Braine le Conte — brain-luh- 

cont'. 
Braisne — brehn. 
Brescia — bray'-sha. 
Breslau — brez'low. 
Bruges — broo'jez (Fr., briizh — 

Fr. u). 
Brussels — bruxelle (bru- 

shel'.) 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 



191 



Bukarest — book'-a-rest. 
Budapest — boo'-da-pest'. 
Bullecourt — bool-coor' 
Calais — kah-lay'. 
Cambrai — kong-breh. 
Cattaro — catt'-aro. 
Chalons — sha-lon'. 
Chateau Thierry — sha'to- 

tye'ry. 
Chaulnes — shohn. 
Chauny — sho-nee. 
Chauveau — sho-vd'. 
Charleroi — shar-le-rwah. 
Chaumont — sho-mon'. 
Chemin des Dames — shaman- 

da-dahm. 
Chimay — she-may'. 
Cherbourg — sher-boor'. 
Cirey — see-ray'. 
Cortemark — kortay-mark. 
Coucy — coosee. 
Craonne — cray'on. 
Croisilles — crwa-sell. 
Courtrai — coor-treh. 
Csaba — chob'o. 
Czernowitz — cher'-no-vits'. 
Danzig — dan'-tsik. 
Dave — dav. 
Delcasse — del'cas-se'. 
Desprez — dep-ray. 
Dieppe — dee-ep'. 
Diest — deest. 
Dijon — di'zhon. 
Dinant — dee-nahn. 
Dixmude — dee-meed. 
Douai — doo-ay'. 
Dunkerque — daihn-keerk. 
Dyle — deel. 

Enghien — ong-ghe-ang. 
Entente — ahn-tahnt. 
Erquelinnes — air-ke-leen. 



Etain — ay'-tang. 

Etappes — ay'-tapp. 

Faulx — foo. 

Fiume — fee-yu-meh'. 

Focsani — fo-sha'-ny. 

Fontainebleau — fon-tane-blow' 
(o in fon like o in or.) 

Foch — Fawsh. 

Frankfurt — frangk'furt. 

Fresnes — frain. 

Furnes — feern. 

Gembloux — ghon-bloo'. 

Genappe — zheh-nap'. 

Gheel — gail. 

Ghent — gent (Fr. gahng). 

Givet — zhee'vay. 

Gorze — geertz. 

Graz — grahts. 

Hague, The — haig. 

Hainault — ha-no'. 

Hal— hahl. 

Halle— hah-le. 

Hamme — hahm. 

Hasselt — hahs'elt. 

Heidelberg — hai'dl-berg 
(Ger., hai'del-berh). 

Havre — ah'vr. 

Heyst — hiest. 

Huy — wee. 

Ivry — ee-vree'. 

Jaroslau — ya'-ro-slow. 

Jeanne d'Arc — zhe-an' (nasal- 
ized) -dar. 

Jodoigne — zho-dwan'-ye. 

Joffre — zhoff-r. 

Jongres — zhong'-r. 

Koniggratz — kay'ne-gratz. 

Kiel— keel. 

Kiao-Chow — kyow-chow. 

Knocke — k'-noc-keh. 

La Belle Alliance— lah-bell' 
ah-lee-anz'. 

La e ken — 1 ah'-ken. 



192 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 



LaFere — la-fair'. 

Langres — 1 ahn'gr. 

Laon — lahng. 

Lassigny — lass-een'-yeh. 

Le Catelet — le-catlay'. 

Le Creusot — le-cre'so. 

Leipsig — lipe'-tsig. 

Liege — lee-aizh'. 

Ligny — lee-n-yee. 

Lille— leel. 

Limburgh — lam-boor'. 

Limoges — lee-mozh'. 

Libramont — leeb'-rah-mong. 

Longwy — long-we'. 

Lokeren — lo'-ker-en. 

Lombartzeyde — lom-bart-zide. 

Louvain — loo-vang. 

Luneville — loo-nay-veel. 

Luxemburg — (Belgium) luks'- 

em-burg. 
Luxembourg (Palace, Paris) 

— luks-ahn-boor'. 
Malines — mah'-leen. 
Marne (river) — marn. 
Maizeret — mez-ray. 
Maubeuge — mo-beuzh. 
Meaux — mo. 
Meurthe — murt. 
Meuse (river) — miuze or mez. 
Metz — mets. 

Mezieres — may-zee-yare'. 
Mirecourt — me-re-coor. 
Mulhausen — meel-how-zen ; 

Fr., meel-ooze. 
Monceaux — mong-so. 
Mons — mongs. 
Montdidier — mon-didyay. 
Moulins — moo-Ian'. 
Namur — na-mur (nameer). 
Nancy — nahng-see'. 
Nanteuil — nong-toy. 
Neerwinden — nair'-vin-den. 
Neidenburg — ny-den-burg. 



Nesle — nail. 

Neuf chateau — neu-shah-to. 

Neuilly — noi-yee. 

Noyelles — nwah-yel'. 

Noyon — nwa-yon. 

Oise (river) — wahz. 

Orleans — or'le-anz (Fr., or- 

lay-ahn'.) 
Ostend — os-tend'. 
Ottignies — ot-teen'-ye. 
Oudenard — oo'-de-nard. 
Ourq — oork. 
Oye — wah. 
Peronne — puh-rone'. 
Pervuse — pair-veez'. 
Piave — pe-ah'veh. 
Pinch e — pangsh. / 

Poincare — pwan'-kar-e. *^ 
Pont Arcy — pong-tar-si'. 
Prague — praig 

(Bohem., praha) 
Przemysl — psha'-me-zl. 
Ramillies — rah-mee-yay'. 
Reims, Rheims — reems (Fr., '■ , . 

rangce). 
Rena'ix — reh-nay. 
Roisel — rwah-zell. 
Roubaix — roo-bai. 
Rouen — roo-ahn'. 
Roulers — roo-lay'. 
Roye — rwah. 
Sacile — sah-chee'-lay. 
Salonica — sa'-lo-ni'-ka. 
Sarajevo — sa'-ra-yay'-vo. 
Sedan — se-dahn'. 
Seine — sain. 
Semlin — zem'-lin. 
Semois — su-mwah. 
Senlis — san'le. 
Seraing — se-rang. 
Sevres — sayvr. 
Sofia — so'-fe-yah. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 



193 



Soignes — swah-n-yee. 
Soissons — swah'-son. 
Spalato — spa'lato. 
Somme — som. 
Stavelot — stav-Io. 
Strasbourg — stross'-boor. 
St. Denis — san de-nee' 
St. Die — san-dee-ay'. 
St. Gobain — sang-go-bang'. 
St. Leger — san-leh-zhay. 
/" St. Mihiel — san-me-el. 
St. Quentin — san-kon'tan. 
St. Simon — san-see'-mon. 
St. Strond — san-strong. 
Tarnow — tar'nov. 
Termonde — tehr-mongd'. 
Terveuren — tehr-fwe-ay-ren. 
Thielt— teelt. 
Thionville — tee-on'-veel. 
Thorn — torn. 
Thourout — too-roo. 
Thuin — twe-ahng'. 
Tilloy— till-wah. 
Tirlemont — tirl'raon. 



Tongres — tong-r. 

Toul — tool. 
, Tourcoing — toor-kwang. 
** Tours — toor. 

Trafalgar — tra-f al'gar ; or 
tra-fahl-gahr'. 

Treves — trave. 

Trouville — troo-veel'. 

Troyes — trwah. 

Vailly — vah-yee. 

Valenciennes — vah-lahn-sien'. 

Vaux — voh. 

Verdun — var-dun. 

Verviers — vare-vee-ay. 

Vervins — vare-vang. 
v Vesle — vail. 

Vichy — vee-shee'. 

Vincennes — vin-senz' (Fr., 
van-sen.) 

Vilvorde — veel-vort'. ^. 

Vosges — vozh. JT"^ 

Ypres — e'pr; e as in eel. y 

Yser— e'zr. 

Zeebrugge — zay-brweg-geh. 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 195 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 



Absolute knowledge I have none 86 

Across the sands by Mary's well 47 

Against the shabby house I pass each day Ill 

A little grimy-fingered girl 43 

Archduke Francis Ferdinand, Austrian heir-apparent 137 

Bosun's whistle piping, "Starboard watch is on" ; 18 

Boy in khaki, boy in blue 82 

By blazing homes, through forests torn 70 

Click, click! how the needles go 128 

Come shake hands, my little peach blossom 76 

Dear little flag in the window there 154 

Do we love our boys in khaki ? That we do ! 108 

Down toward the deep-blue water, marching to throb of 

drum 112 

"Do your bit!" How cheap and trite 152 

Far and near, high and clear 106 

Flag of our Faith : lead on — 40 

Float thou majestically, proudly, triumphantly 153 

Franceline rose in the dawning gray 139 

From the earliest hour of our history 65 

George was a man of nigh fifty years 63 

Gone is the spire that slept for centuries 92 

Hail and farewell 126 

Hail, banner of our holy faith 45 

Hear the guns, hear the guns ! 134 

He profits most who serves us best ! 179 

Here's to the Blue of the wind-swept North 41 

He was a French Boy Scout — a little lad 83 

He woke: the clank and racket of the train 121 

Ho ! Heimdal sounds the Gjallar-horn : 21 



196 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

Index — Continued 

I enlisted in the infantry last summer ; 141 

If I should die, think only this of me: 102 

I have a conversation book; I brought it out from home 19 

I have a rendezvous with Death 99 

I hear the throbbing music down the lanes of Afric rain:. . . 42 

I knit, I knit, I pray, I pray 185 

In Flanders' fields the poppies blow 101 

In this last hour, before the bugles blare 120 

I saw the spires of Oxford 114 

I sit down to write a poem of our fighting men's renown. . . . 169 
I stand on a peak at Verdun — a scarred, torn peak of hope 

and death 167 

It is long since knighthood was in flower 85 

It is portentous, and a thing of state. 144 

I tried to be a doughboy, but they said my feet were flat 143 

It's a high-falutin' title they have handed us; 44 

It was only a little river ; almost a brook ; 159 

I've heard a half a dozen times 113 

I was an exile from my own country 93 

I wonder what the trees will say 118 

Just for a "scrap of paper," 24 

Leave me alone here, proudly, with my dead 132 

Left! Left! Had a good girl when I Left! Left 71 

Let us have peace. No craven's peace, 127 

Let us praise God for the Dead: the Dead who died in our 

cause 119 

March, march, men of America ! 13 

Men in all ages have accepted signs and omens 25 

Mike Dillon was a doughboy 61 

My house that I so soon shall own 110 

My name is Danny Bloomer and my age is eighty-three. ... 75 
My son, at last the fateful day has come 87 

Never a Serbian flower shall bloom 50 

No bugle is blown, no roll of drums 86 

No Man's Land is an eerie sight 16 

Not for the love of conquest do we blame 51 

Not with vain tears, when we're beyond the sun 102 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 197 

Index — Continued 

O guns, fall silent till the dead men hear 109 

Oh, Carranza sent a cable- (on the kaiser's birthday) gram. 176 

Oh, Land of Ours, hear the song we make for you — 161 

Oh ye whose hearts are resonant, and ring to War's romance 146 

One star for all she had 116 

On law and love and mercy 178 

Our little hour — how swift it flies — 103 

Out here the dogs of war run loose 184 

Out of the night it leaped the seas 186 

Outside the ancient city's gate 48 

Over thousands of miles 53 

Pardon ! he has no Engleesh, heem 73 

Past the marching men, where the great road runs 162 

Perched upon an office stool, neatly adding figures 94 

Ribbons of white in the flag of our land 105 

Saint Genevieve, whose sleepless watch 20 

Say, pa ! What is a service flag? 158 

She stands alone beside the gate 157 

Some day the fields of Flanders shall bloom in peace again. 129 

Somewhere is music from the linnets' bills 104 

Song of the west wind whispering — listen 163 

Son o' ol' Miz McAuliffe, the widder o' Box-Car Jack 155 

Standin' up here on the fire-step 80 

Still breaks the Holy morn, to soothe the care 117 

Straight thinking, Straight talking 57 

Suddenly one day the last ill shall fall away 151 

Summer comes and summer goes 72 

Thank God, our liberating lance 46 

The band is on the quarter-deck, the starry flag unfurled;. . 166 

The evening star a child espied 81 

The Kid has gone to the Colors 23 

The Kings are dying! In blood and flame 145 

The little home paper comes to me 15 

The magpies in Picardy 130 

The mist hangs low and quiet on a ragged line of hills. . . . 182 

The nightingales of Flanders 50 



198 THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 

Index — Continued 

The old flag is a-doin' her very level best 151 

The outfield is a-creepin' in to catch the kaiser's pop 177 

The rivers of France are ten score and twain 79 

The sick man said : "I pray I shall not die 133 

The soldier boys are marching, are marching past my door; 78 
The star upon their service flag has changed to gleaming 

gold : 17 

The sunny streets of Oxford 115 

There are some that go for love of a fight 96 

There is a hill in England 60 

There is joy in Enniscorthy, there is glee in old Tralee 181 

There used to be a boy next door 172 

There will be dreams again! The grass will spread 171 

They dug no grave for our soldier lad, who fought and who 

died out there: 136 

They knew they were fighting our war. As the months grew 

to years 52 

They shall not pass, While Britain's sons draw breath. . . . 125 

They shall return when the wars are over 179 

They've put us through our paces ; 69 

Thou art no longer here 90 

Through the dark night and the fury of battle 84 

'Tis a green isle set in a silver water 180 

Trotting the roan horse 170 

Twenty years of the army, of drawing a sergeant's pay. ... 38 

Unfurl the flag of Freedom 98 

Up among the chimneys tall 49 

Was there ever a game we did not share 91 

We had forgotten You, or very nearly — 55 

We often sit upon the porch on sultry August nights 59 

West to the hills, the long, long trail that strikes 123 

We whom the draft rejected 160 

What are we fighting for, men of my race 165 

When the shells are bursting round 174 

Why do we love our flag? Ask why flowers love the sun- 
shine 173 



THE WAR IN VERSE AND PROSE 199 

Index — Continued 

Yes, back at home I used to drive a tram ; 97 

Ye soldiers in the trenches lined 89 

You're a funny fellow, poilu, in your dinky little cap 95 

You see that young kid lying there 124 

"You've heard a good deal of the telephone wires" 57 



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